Internalizing Dehumanization: An Althusserian Anatomization of Jamil Ahmed’s The Wandering Falcon

Abstract

This article aims to cross-examine the ideological manipulation of people living in tribal areas of Pakistan in the light of Jamil Ahmed’s The Wandering Falcon. Baloch people are bereft of their basic human rights of even owning the place where they live. This naturally rich land full of mineral resources is feudalized and grabbed by their landlords and is sold to the international mafia via the state of their country. This looting and grabbing of land resources have been rationalized in media through the portrayal of a terrorized image of Baloch people living across the globe. Not only the state but other important social institutes such as education and religion are also playing their hegemonic role in internalizing a dehumanized identity in Baloch people where they do not even have the right to call their living place their place, where they cannot demand the proper education and health facilities from the state. The inconspicuous role of the institutes including education, media, and religion in fulfilling the state agenda is the impetus behind this article.

Keywords:

• Baloch
• Dehumanization
• Inconspicious
• Internalizing
• Ideological
• Manipulation

1. Introduction

Throughout the globe, the dialogue over defining the identity of a particular individual or a certain group and the battles to resolve their conflict over identity-related issues are interminable. As nations fight for their separate identity, similar can be the case for a tribe within a nation. The importance of national or tribal identity can be determined based on the policies implemented within a country or a tribe but the focus of this article is to critically evaluate the fluctuating identity of neglected Baloch tribes and role of the ideological state apparatuses to manipulate the identity of underprivileged tribal people to make them a subject of the state with reference to Ahmed’s The Wandering Falcon Thus, the article concentrates upon and highlights the factors which are involved in manipulating the minds of poor tribal people. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels jot down this riff between the proletariat and bourgeoisie class in The Communist Manifesto (1848). According to them, this class struggle is exploited by the specific class that is running and holding the economy of the state, and thus this bourgeois class who practically owns the mobilization of economic prosperity gets to benefit from “actual relations springing from an existing class struggle” (Blunden 41). Louis Althusser’s idea of ideology is inspired by this class struggle, and he associates the concept of ideology and economy together. The ideology of proletariats is constituted according to the needs of the bourgeois and the flow of the economy. This constitution of ideology is a by-product of the working of Ideological State Apparatuses (1970) (ISA) and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA) (Althusser, 141).

As Althusser thinks of ideology, Stuart Hall also supports a similar stance on the concept of the identity of an individual and a culture. “It is not some universal and transcendental spirit inside us” (Hall 226). Hall stabilizes his narrative of non-static identity and identifies it as “the politics of identity” to keep itself shifting according to time and place (226). Thus, the role of hegemonic ideology is resulting in the identity crisis of the proletariat class, and it is keeping them away from demanding their basic human rights.

The Wandering Falcon is the debut fiction of Jamil Ahmed, a retired bureaucrat who served in the tribal areas of Pakistan such as Malakand, Chaghi, Swat Valley, Khyber, Hindu Kush, Quetta, and some other Frontier areas. He provided his services at the Pakistani embassy in Afghanistan’s capital during the Afghan civil war. He tries to narrate his real three life experiences in The Wandering Falcon to portray the marginalization of poor villagers in tribal areas of Pakistan. Ahmed reveals the height of oppression in tribal areas through the character of a boy Tor Baz who becomes The Wandering Falcon by traveling along the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan and witnesses the oppression faced by the poor villagers. Tor Baz witnesses his parents’ killing in the name of honor when he is 5-years old. He spectates the oppression of the state on the poor tribal people who get punishment for demanding their basic fundamental rights. State institutions call those tribal people for negotiations, but instead of negotiating with them they are arrested, trialed in court, and got the death sentence. He witnesses the women who are compelled to work as a prostitute in the slave market. He observes sex-slavery in the slave market of Mian Mandi. He observes the kidnapping of the teachers in those areas, and at the same time, he witnesses the children abandoned and the killings of several poor people and their livestock for crossing the borders without documents which they cannot obtain because of not having a birth certificate.

The Wandering Falcon (2011) is a novel cum interconnected short stories book, which provides a glimpse into the downtrodden Baloch tribal society residing on the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan before the arrival of Talibanisation. This depiction of the insignificant life of these nomads and their undisputed inclination and attachment to their culture and their past is closely witnessed by the writer, Jamil Ahmed, himself. In The Wandering Falcon, Ahmad writes down those experiences and the struggles of these nomads to meet their daily needs of the miserable life. These wandering nomads and their homelessness are displayed more profusely in the character of Tor Baz, the protagonist, who himself belongs to no tribe. Tor Baz appears in each story of this novel where in some of them he is a mere child while in some others is a spy or a guide and even a trader as well. Tor Baz, despite having a devastating and shaking back-story is still a symbol of the unfaltering resistance of a Baloch in surrendering his identity.

In the article Rootless identity in The Wandering Falcon, Padam Raj Khanal states that relocating cultural region interprets an amalgamation of identification in The Wandering Falcon. During the process in which a person adjusts to a new place, he begins to start endorsing the patterns of that specific culture. Along with altering cultural location, a person has to change his way of living too and as a result of it, a person has to face the physical and intellectual crises. The protagonist of the novel, Tor Baz, encounters ethnic transformation in his life when he moves from one place to another. Tor Baz is raised in a tribal culture, where he spent most of the early years of his life. He is assigned to follow the patterns of his culture regarding religion, language, and social conduct. The social and cultural factors of a community define the identity of its individuals.

Due to the endurance crisis, Tor Baz, along with his parents, has to move towards the border where they come across another tribal community and as a result of interacting with multiple cultures, he is unable to find a consolidated identity. It is due to this that he is neither able to carry on with his authentic self nor transforms him completely according to the new tribal culture. He becomes a product of both cultures and acts as a detached man. (Khanal, 2016, p. 31).

Shazia Sadaf in her article Human dignity, the “War on Terror” and post-9/11 Pakistani Fiction portrays that The Wandering Falcon is a story of people belonging to tribal areas who are not ready to make any compromise on their cultural values and consider those cultural values as the part of their religion but in reality, these cultural values have nothing to do with their religion. Furthermore, people of those areas have suffered a lot just because of the war against terror which was started after 9/11 and as a result, those innocent people have been suspected as a terrorist and considered as other within the society. Likewise, she illustrates that tribal norms, custom values of the people belong to tribal areas, and their sufferings as a result of the war against terror have been highlighted in Ahmed’s work. (Sadaf, 2018, p. 125)

Antonio Gramsci also gives his views about class domination in society. Gramsci says that cultural hegemony plays a vital role in the domination of the bourgeoisie class in a state. In a society, culture promotes the Bourgeoisie class. Those norms and views are fixed by the ruling class that becomes the hegemonic culture for the poor and the working class in the society. According to him, capitalist order is maintained with the help of the hegemonic power and coercive power should not be used to maintain order in society. He gives much importance to the culture of the ruling class. The bourgeoisie class gets dominancy over the working class. The Proletariat or the working class is destroyed at the hands of the ruling class. According to the above said Marxists, the state always supports the bourgeoisie class. (Gramsci, 2008, p. 80–85).

According to a review published in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Wandering Falcon penetrates an original, intuitive, and natural aspect. The consequence is so relentless and it is because the fiction is so expressive and unambiguous. Ahmad writes, not from the viewpoint of an elevation, but adjoining to the heartbeat of a convoluted web of tribes and families … spare, appealing, and generated by restrictions. The Wandering Falcon is a masterpiece of a novel, perplexing in its inspection of a way of life that we in the west endure in an attempt to adjust.

Althusser has given the concepts of ISAs and RSAs. ISAs stand for ideological state apparatuses. In ideological state apparatuses, many institutes are working in any state to control the people, especially the lower and middle classes. Ideological state apparatuses influence the minds of the people. There are religious and social institutes such as Churches, Mosques, Schools, Media, Family, and colleges which are working to impose the ideology of the state on the poor but their working style is not to punish the people directly rather they try to convince the masses through constant propaganda. They work to make the minds of the people so that they will not be able to challenge the outdated norms of society. In ISAs there are many other institutes such as political parties, families, and literature which change the minds of the poor people to protect the interest of the ruling or bourgeoisie class in the state. These institutions work under the bourgeoisie and the Middle and lower classes become the victim in the hands of these segments. (Althusser,114)

Political parties are no less than any other institution which can change the minds of the people. Politicians convince the people to accept the dominant ideology through their impressive speeches but their purpose isn’t the welfare of the general public rather they work to secure their material benefits in the state. People become blind as a result of consecutive brainwashing by ISAs and get ready to sacrifice their lives for the political causes or personalities. In this way, the mind of the poor is diverted through ISAs to make him deprive of the basic necessities of life and use him as a tool to protect the economic interests of the ruling class. Literature is another ISA that is used to control the minds of the poor in a way that the rich class produces such sort of literature in the society which make the poor realize that he is born to serve the ruling class and he is born poor because of his fate so the individuals accept social inequalities as their fate instead of showing any resistance against them likewise literature affects the minds of new generations and they change themselves according to the new literature in the society.

Baloch tribes are living in a place that is rich in natural resources in Pakistan. It is abundant in mineral resources along with “the largest reserves of copper and gold in the world and is also blessed with huge oil reserves” (Panira Ali). Unfortunately, it is the most illiterate and less educated area as compared to all other areas and provinces in Pakistan. These people are treated inhumanely low by the state and thus they carry their grievances against the state and are always in a state of war for demanding their due rights. This instability in Balochistan has ultimately produced terrorism and extremism which is keeping these people away from gaining the sympathy of the world and their state fellows as well. The poor people of this rich area are not only victimized by the state but wretchedly this victimization is entailed by the feudal goons of this area as well. But what is notable in this scenario is the use of ISAs to interpellate the minds of those downtrodden tribal people.

Louis Althusser associates this concept of identity with an ideology that is not formed idealistically but is directly connected with material needs. In his book “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” he concurs those social institutions like family, marriage, education, and even religion which look disconnected and unconcerned with abiding by the state machinery or state law are the real belongings of the state (Althusser 141). Thus, institutions such as schools, churches, families, media, trade unions, and law were formally considered and believed to be outside the state control but were recently analyzed and found to be serving and transmitting the values of the state.

Ideological state apparatuses influence the minds of the people by convincing them that they are the subject of the state. There are religious and social institutes such as Churches, Mosques, Schools, Media, families, and colleges which are employed to impose the ideology of the state on the meagre but their working style is not to punish the people directly rather they stab to convince the masses through constant propaganda. They function to manipulate the minds of the people so that they will not be able to challenge the outdated norms of society. These institutions work under the bourgeoisie as a result middle and lower classes become the victims in the hands of these segments. (Althusser 114). According to Marxists, the main objective of this alliance of ideological state apparatuses (ISA) with the state is to control the compliance of the masses in the backdrop of the capitalist agenda. In The Wandering Falcon, this compliance of the Baloch tribes is gained through the ISA which is ultimately abating the humane stature of the Baloch tribes.

This article raises the voice of those whose voices go unheard through the centuries. The article echoes the denigrated Baloch rights and demands a humane identity for the Baloch tribe of Pakistan. Significantly, the article unveils how does a well-organized agenda of the state in connection with social institutes like education, religion, and media, deliberately add fuel to this fire of tyranny against the Baloch tribe in dehumanizing their identity.

1.1. State-sponsored Media

This section of the article sheds light on how the media is exploited to control the minds of the poor tribal people in Jamil Ahmed’s The Wandering Falcon. The purpose of this institution is to impose the ideology of the state on the poor masses to use them as a mode of production. In this way, this institution manipulates the minds of the poor masses by incarcerating them in a way that they’ll not be able to challenge the outdated traditions of the society which are formed by the ruling class to protect their economic interests.

The Wandering Falcon unveils the role of media which functions as an agent of the state to manipulate the minds of the general public instead of spreading awareness in the general public as in the second chapter of the novel, electronic, and print media don’t report the state-backed killings of eight Baloch by the government which reveals that media functions as a tool to propagate the ideology of the state instead of highlighting the issues of the masses.Therefore, the same media which leaves no stone unturned to highlight the atrocities in Kashmir, Burma, and Palestine refuse to cover the unfair Killings of the Baloch in their homeland. Althusser considers media as an ISA which only functions to convince the people to bow their heads in front of the state ideology and binds the people to sovereign power by will rather than power (Althusser). The fourth pillar of the state works as a representative of state ideology and those who demand their basic fundamental rights are portrayed as a threat to the state in the media. As Ahmed’s comment on the double standards and hypocrisy of media in these lines is a sarcastic representation of mal-functioning of media in capitalist society:

There was complete and total silence about the Baloch, their cause, their lives, and their deaths. No newspaper editor risked punishment on their behalf. Typically, Pakistani journalists sought salve for their conscience by writing about the wrongs done to men in South Africa, in Indonesia, Palestine, and the Philippines—not to their people. No politician risked imprisonment: they would continue to talk of the rights of the individual, the dignity of man, and the exploitation of the poor, but they would not expose the wrong being done outside their front door. No bureaucrat risked dismissal. He would continue to flatter his conscience through the power he could display over inconsequential subjects. (Ahmed 26)

This exposes the duplicity of today’s journalists who have deep eyes on the atrocities committed outside the borders, but they don’t have any space for those poor who become the victim of state oppression because in such sorts of stories journalists remain deprived of the incentives and perks by the state, therefore, they only cover those stories which are not contradictory to the vast interest of the state furthermore all focus of media is own talk shows about non-issues and morning shows to divert the attention of the masses from the real issues. Neither any journalist nor bureaucrat dares to raise a question that how the issue which can be resolved so simply through negotiations, leads to a catastrophic end just because of the negligence of the state. It seems that the reason behind that silence is that those who hold administer responsibilities at Baloch tribes are part of the most powerful state institution and the culture of raising questions in front of the bourgeois is not developed in society so far therefore the journalists prefer to close their eyes from the atrocities of the state to protect their material gains.

1.2. Fabricated Religious Sermons

Moulvi Barrerai in The Wandering Falcon is portrayed as a religious preacher who works for the ruling class to convince the people through his falsified sermons to assure them that if they tolerate all the miseries and hardships of their lives without raising their voices against the ruling class, they will be rewarded by God for their patience and contentment. Althusser for this reason consider religion as a very crucial part of ISA along with media and education because it transmits the curse of class consciousness in the society by favoring the dominant ideology through religious teachings henceforth it encourages the poor class to believe that the whole society is organized according to the will of God so it’s considered a sin to challenge the organization of the society.

Moulvi Barrera in his religious sermons tells the villagers about a story of a poor man in the hills who uses to collect firewood from place to place for earning his livelihood and at night he spreads his blanket and sleeps under the tree. Despite such a difficult life he remains contented and keeps on offering his prayers on time. He has no wish except for the pilgrimage to Mecca despite being well aware of the fact that his desire can never be fulfilled because of his pathetic financial condition. He remains resolute that a miracle will surely happen and it happens one day when he hears an anonymous voice addressing him as:

Get up, go to your donkey, and it shall take you for a pilgrimage,” it commanded. The man was bewildered but did as he was told. As he approached the donkey, its stomach seemed to open up. The bewildered man sat down in it, and the walls of his stomach closed around him. The donkey then started trotting, and, believe me, it took him straight to Mecca, and the poor man performed hajj. This man died long ago. He must surely be resting in paradise. After his difficult stay on earth, I can imagine him sitting with the houris, who are wondrous, fair, and who possess breasts the likes of which are beyond your imaginations. Breasts so large that it would take a crow a full day and night to fly from one nipple to another. I can imagine him roaming in a cool forest where trees bear grapes the size of water pitchers and one grape can provide you your fill of food and water, and bath, too, if you wish it. (53)

This is an illustration of ideological state apparatus in a way that religious preachers use to tell fabricated stories to the poor people about religion so that they remain indulged in offering their religious obligations for getting a reward from God instead of demanding their basic fundamental rights from the rulers and just because of this reason Marx in his work A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right rightly declares religion as “opium of the people.” Religion is one of the most important tools of the state to impose its ideology because it works as an opium for the oppressed people, and they forget all their pains and miseries in a hope that one day a miracle will happen and they will get rid of their troubles (Marx, 1887, p. 78).

The poor are facing restrictions and sanctions not only in Pakistan but they are facing these issues in every capitalist society because of their absence from political spheres. They can neither do the things of their choice nor can contribute to the legislation because of their backwardness. They cannot choose to exercise their free will without the permission of rich people. The priority is always given to the one who is rich and has high social status and high connections in the assemblies and the poor are considered nowhere. The poor are also deprived of justice and they are told that “Time heals everything,” and one day they will get out of this miserable condition. But these mere words are not enough because the fact is that time heals nothing but with time, the poor learn to live with this misery and then they suffer less knowing it’s a part of their life

This hope of divine help doesn’t allow them to take any practical initiative for bringing revolution against those who are dominant on the majority of the resources as the fabricated stories of Moulvi Barrerai show the plight of the people from the real world to a utopian world so that they instantly forget the harsh realities of the world. When the scout men ask him that if he doesn’t believe in these fabricated stories himself, then why he is misguiding the people through his lies, he laughs and replies:

You don’t understand,’ he said. “These are not lies. These stories are like ointment, meant for healing, or like a piece of ice in the summer, with which water in a glass is cooled. Would you call that piece of ice a lie?” He continued to tell us, ‘What do these people have? Hardly enough food or water in normal times, and after a few months, summer will be upon them when most of their springs will dry up. For the next few months, they will need hope as a thirsty man in the cities needs ice in his water, and I am giving it to them. Call them lies if you please. (Ahmed 52–53)

This response of Moulvi Barrerai endorses Althusser’s stance that it is in the vast interest of the state to provoke religious sentiments among the poor people so that they seek refuge in religious obligations instead of challenging the set patterns of the society and for this purpose, religious clerks tell fabricated stories to the marginalized people because it works as a remedy of the coercion. The state on one end becomes a puppet in the hands of feudalists and makes the life of the poor so pathetic that they may revolt against it, but, on the other hand, it provides ointment in the form of religion for healing their pains. In this way, Mullah Barrerai’s fictional religious stories are part of ISA to compensate for the pathetic lives of other people by leading them towards an imaginary world through religious sermons.

Moulvi Barrerai’s character is a true representation of clergies who manipulate religious doctrines just for their material gains moreover they are used by the state to control the minds of the masses as he uses to have a plight of an imaginary world with the poor people to provide them refuge from harsh realities of life. He pretends himself as a pious and virtuous man who forbids the people to do any immoral act, but he works as a manager of dancing girls after his sermons. As scout boy reveals “When I went to visit the wounded man in the hospital the next morning, who should I find but my old friend Mullah Barrerai? It was quite a surprise to see him, of all people, acting as the manager of dancing girls. Barrerai was not embarrassed in the least and told me that he had done the job before“ (54)

This shows hypocrisy of clergies who corrupts the religion through their falsified sermons and immoral acts but at the same time they have a huge contradiction in what they preach and what they practice as Moulvi preaches the poor people to earn their bread and butter through legitimate means to get reward from God but, on the other hand, he himself works as a manager of dancing girls for the sake of material gains and when the people come to know about his job, he instead of feeling embarrassment bluntly reveals that he has worked as a manager of dancing girls before pursuing his job as a clergy, and he is still in this profession but the situation becomes even worse when the state instead of punishing such people uses them as a tool to propagate its ideology on the people as in this scenario Barrerai uses to do and Just because of this reason Althusser puts religion on the top among the tools which are used to impose state ideology on the people another hypocrisy of the Mullahs is revealed in this line: Hamesh Gul wished he could buy a transistor radio. “It makes one forget one’s tiredness,” he claimed. “Of course, I could not have dared to mention it only ten years ago,” he said and laughed. “The poor man who brought the first radio to Tirah was hauled up before the mullahs. His transistor was condemned, and a firing squad shot it to bits. (79)

This line reveals how the minds of innocent people are controlled by religious clergies who try their best to make the people unaware of the outside world as Hamesh Gul wants to buy a radio to overcome his boredom, but he is afraid of the Mullahs who have the bad reputation for issuing Fatawa against the first person who brings transistor at Tirah tribe henceforth; they break the transistor into pieces and condemn it and declare it haram to have radio in home which illustrates that how the Mullahs are manipulating religious practices for their material benefits. They have declared radio prohibited so that people don’t get enough awareness to distinguish between right and wrong because if they manage to do so they will start challenging the old patterns of society.

Pervez Hoodbhoy in his book Science and Religion states that it is in the vast interest of the religious preachers to make the people illiterate of science and technology so that they remain deprived of their critical thinking and such minds are easily intoxicated through falsified religious sermons so the war between science and religion doesn’t even exist from the root because both are different subjects but religious preachers start a baseless but controversial debate about the clash between science and religion to maintain their hegemony on poor people (Hoodbhoy, 1991) similarly the act of Mullahs to condemn transistor seems to be an attempt to prove the use of technology as an evil practice.

1.3. The capitalist System of Education

Althusser in his essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses states that the system of education primarily works to reproduce the ideology of the ruling class and the schools work as an ISA which indoctrinates the children to accept their inferior status in society by working for the ruling class (Althusser 113). Similarly, the system of education shapes the minds of the poor to make them realize that they are inferior creature and all the divisions of the people based on caste, culture, and ethnicity is somehow the result of the system of education which is shaped to control the minds of the working class so that they instead of struggling for their equal rights accept their inferior status in the society as the marginalization of Gujjar community because of their less prestigious caste exposes the role of ISA to oppress the poor class.

The Gujjars are treated as a sub-human in the tribal areas where they are deprived of their basic fundamental rights moreover they are not allowed to own the property and the more regretful thing is that instead of struggling for their equal rights they accept their inferior status in the society because they may have an idea in their mind that in case if they start resisting against the unfair treatment, they will also have to lose their lives same as the Baloch and the Kharoot. Because of this reason, they show no resentment on their exploitation as Ahmed the novel unveils in the below lines “Their diffidence and humility had become so ingrained in theories that they showed no resentment at being treated as an inferior people” (Ahmed 92).

This line also shows how the poor people are suppressed in society and the rich have managed to prove their superiority over them through the medium of education which according to Althusser is a medium to project state ideology moreover from the centuries, the rich are imposing their wills on the downtrodden Gujjar community with no power and wealth. The poor Gujjars get no shelter and refuge from this vicious world where the rich are ruling the poor which is a realistic illustration of intolerable behavior of people belonging to the high social class that they tend to degrade poor people by different means. The rich people treat poor people so violently that a time comes in their lives when the poor find it okay to be treated violently. This is because they know that they lack power and wealth and they have no other option but to tolerate all the sufferings because those who are oppressing them through ISA (Ideological State Apparatuses) have direct support from the state and if they start challenging their social status they will be convicted through RSA (Repressive state apparatuses) just because of this reason they instead of fighting for their equal rights accept their inferior status in the society.

The Gujjars are treated as inferior people in society because of their lower status and they get no rights rather they are demeaned and degraded for who they are and what is their position in society which reveals that the poor are not allowed to express their feelings and opinions and when it comes to the political system. The Gujjars are living in a society where a particular rich and dominant class is ruling so they have to merge themselves in those constraints to avoid harsh comments of people. They are completely bound to follow the culture and norms of the ruling class as The Wandering Falcon through an unknown narrator unveils the dehumanization of Gujjar community due to their ethnic background.

In The God of Small Things, Roy (1997) has also exposed the caste system in third world countries and shows the plight of poor people who are divided on the basis of caste, culture, and ethnicity as in The Wandering Falcon, The Gujjars are considered untouchable people who are not allowed to buy any property because of their inferior status similarly Roy has exposed the exploitation of people belong to the lower castes in her novel The God of Small Things through the character of Valutha who is considered untouchable in the society, and therefore, he is not allowed to enter the houses of the people belong to the superior ethnic groups. Pappachi who is the male character of The God of Small Things considers Velutha untouchable, and he does not permit to enter Velutha in his house likewise the Gujjars are also degraded by the other tribes because of their lower status in society which reveals that the degradation of people because of their caste is not merely the problem in Pakistan instead it’s the problem of every third world country moreover this line also shows that how Gujjars are being treated by Pathan as Ahmed says:

They lived quiet, tormented lives on windswept hilltops and dark, narrow mountain defiles, eking out a living from a soil that was so poor it was unattractive to all others under the custom of the dominating tribes, the Gujjars could neither own the land they cultivated could neither acquire any other property, centuries of insult had created trauma in these people. Very few had any pride left in themselves, their language, or their culture. (Ahmed 92)

This depicts how the poor Gujjars are even unable to own the land which they cultivate because the ruling class is the ultimate owner of all the resources in the capitalist society and the Gujjars because of their inferior status are destined to live in those areas where they cannot earn enough to feed their family and where there are no facilities of life. The owners of land impose their wills and give almost no credit to the workers who are working over there and all they do is to use their efforts for their gains when it comes to bestowing them for what they have done, the rich show injustice and give them very little so that they can hardly survive and to make the situation even worse, they do not allow poor people to own land and to buy any property so that if they become independent to earn their bread and butter, then it will be a challenge for the ruling class to get the human resource to earn capital for them.

The ruling class reserve all productive things for themselves and leave barren lands and small houses for poor people who as a result have to face challenges to survive and to feed their family. Marx in Communist Manifesto (1848) addresses this oppressed class as “you have nothing to lose but your chains.” (Marx & Engels, 2017, p. 79) Similarly the Gujjars in tribal areas are associated with less prestigious occupations like dairy farming as elaborated in the text. They are neither allowed to start their own business nor allowed to buy agriculture or residential lands. As a result, they have to live a life of gypsies in the tents where they are hardly able to fulfill their basic necessities of life.

The state by no means is so biased that it does not take any practical measure to eliminate the curse of the caste system from society probably because the political system in capitalist countries is merely concerned about the interests of the ruling class and the purpose behind collecting votes from the masses is primarily getting fame and money so the welfare of oppressed classes and reforming the social status of downtrodden people can never be prioritized by ruling class henceforth the discrimination on the base of caste is the consequence of the state ideology which is designed to control the minds of the poor class.

The role of the state is so cruel in this regard because when it comes to giving rights to the oppressed people state always seems absent and the reason is that to some way or the other the feudal who are involved in the oppression are the part of the state so their only preference is to work for the benefits of the ruling class and oppress the poor through ISA and RSA so that they will not be able to challenge their marginalization and if they try to do so the state repress them through its armed institutions so the state is not paying attention to the marginalized ones rather all of its focus is on people who are already stable. This injustice is prevailed and caused much harm to the poor. In rural areas, poor people are not allowed to possess animals because they can only be possessed by rich people as Gujjar community in Ahmed’s novel is dehumanized due to their ethnic background and the state is favoring this inequality as sustained oppression is not possible without the support of the state.

The ruling class not only controls the modern system of education to control the minds of the poor rather they control the minds of the people through religious education as well; therefore, they only employ those clergies in religious institutions that work to propagate the ideology of the state to make the people away from their rebellious thoughts: Fateh Mohammad is a local mullah of the village who looks after the village mosque at the time of its construction but “He was to be disappointed, though, because, on completion, a short, rubicund man rode up the valley in one of the timber trucks with a letter from the local official, appointing him as the guardian of ecclesiastical affairs (100).

Fateh Muhammad looks after the mosque from the time of its construction, and he is from the same area where the mosque is located even then he remains to fail to get the responsibilities of the mosque because he isn’t the representative of the state and the state wants a kind of clergy for the mosque who manipulates the minds of the people by imposing the ideology of the state over the poor villagers and Fateh Mohammad proves as an unsuitable person for this job; therefore, he is not been allocated as a guardian of the ecclesiastical affair which also shows that poor people with no authority are being repressed and those who work with all keen attention to get appropriate rewards, end up being disappointed same as Fateh Muhammad.

Ahmed portrays the threatening level of hunger and unemployment in the tribal areas where all the jobs and good positions are being hold by those who have wealth and prestigious social status furthermore rich people also manage get their seats in every prestigious institutions to have a better lifestyle and education through corruption and bribery, while poor people cannot afford high expenses of those prestigious institutions, and as a result, they remain deprived of standard education same as Gujjars. They are unable to change their social status, and they have no choice left except to accept their inferior status, and as far as educational institutions are concerned, they are owned by the ruling class to grab money from the poor in the name of teaching and providing education, so the purpose behind education is not to educate the people so that the poor would be able to change their social status by learning modern knowledge rather the modern education is used primarily as a tool to propagate the ideology of the state to control the minds of the poor class. On the other hand, it’s become a business to earn money from the working class. The religious institutes are designed for the same purpose, and only those Mullahs are appointed there who work as a preacher of state ideology.

2. Conclusion

The Wandering Falcon unveils the ideological manipulation of the tribal people through social institutions as Media is supposed to work as a fourth pillar of the state that highlights the flaws in the policies of the state but inwardly it works as a representative of the state to impose the ideology of the state on the poor masses. Similarly, religion is also used as an ISA in Ahmed’s novel to divert the minds of poor tribal people from social inequalities in the society as Moulvi Barrerai through his fabricated religious sermons, attempts to convince the poor villagers that God will compensate for their hardships of this temporary world in the form of a great reward through a miracle if they remain patient henceforth the people instead of asking for their rights from the ruling class, start waiting for a divine miracle to solve out their financial problems same like Barrerai, “Mullahs” in Kuki-Khel tribe issue a “Fatwa” against transistor and declare it Haram to have a radio at home in order to keep the people unaware from the outside world. The education institution protects against class inequality by making the poor realize that they are born inferior to the ruling class, therefore, the purpose of their lives should be to serve the ruling class as an employee same as The Gujjar community in The Wandering Falcon is considered as an inferior community because of their caste, and they are not allowed to buy any property; therefore, they are bound to spend their lives as gypsies, but they instead of resisting against the oppression, accept their inferior status because they are convinced through a capitalist discourse that they are not superior enough to own any property so they have to work as an employee of the rich class to earn their bread and butter. In this way the ideological state apparatuses operate to exploit the proletariat to make them a subject of the state.

Correction

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Usama Javed Iqbal

Usama Javed Iqbal is pursuing his PhD in English Literature from International Islamic University Islamabad. He teaches modern drama, modern fiction, postcolonial literatures, Pakistani Literature in English, Literature and Globalization, and South Asian literature at Rawalpindi Women University, Bahria University Islamabad and International Islamic University Islamabad. His research interests focus on marxist theory, politics of representation, mobility, borders, globalization, Islamic/ Pakistani feminisms, with chief focus on post-9/11 construction of Muslims and Muslim women in relation to Islamophobic discourse.

Shazia Bukhari

Shazia Bukhari is a PhD Scholar in English, currently working as a Lecturer in English at University of Central Punjab Lahore.

Roshaan Khalid

Roshaan Khalid has been working as a lecturer in Department of English University of Lahore since 2022. His research interests focus on marxist and feminist dicourse.