MARKET MODEL, CLASS STRUCTURE AND CONSENT: A RECONSIDERATION OF SWAT POLITICAL ORGANISATION ‘Tatar Asap Univesity of Hull This article is one of several reconsiderations of outstanding monographs in which Ihave tied to explore kinds of assumption about consent found in political anthropology, and to examine the theoretical roots and consequences of such. assumptions. In choosing Profestor Barth's book Political leadership among the ‘Swat Pathans T have taken a study that is and deserves to be a modern classic. T should stress that in offering the following critique T do not intend to make a gratuitous show of academic ingenuity at the expense of what remains a superb analysis, My concern is rather to criticise a dominant intellectual tradition in contemporary political anthropology. But since this article is polemical in intent, Tam concemed that it should not be thought that T may have misrepresented ‘Barth's analysis, For this reason T have made use of extensive and lengthy quotations from his book, as well as from 2 number of articles on Swat which he wrote at about the same time. ‘The remainder ofthis article falls into five parts. In the firs, I reconstruct, more or less in Barth's own words, what I call the pure model of Swat politcal organisa tion. In the second part I draw attention to certain logical similarities between this ‘model and that of Hobbes, whose theory constitutes one of the main formative influences in the development of Western political thought (both 28 inspiration, and as iritan’), Discussion of the similarities will enable us to complete Barth's ‘model, which I shall thea criticise in the third and fourth sections. In the con- cluding pages I offer some general observations arising from the reconsideration, ee “When Fredrik Barth carried out his fieldwork, Swat was a centralised state, of some halfa million souls, under the authority of a princely Ruler who had been. recognised as autonomous frst by the Government of British India, and then by the Government of Pakistan, The book, published in r959, concentrates on the acephalous political system of Swat prior t0 the foundation of Swat state in 3917, a system which, in its essentials, was stil largely intact at the time the fieldwork was conducted in 1954. A final, short chapter summarises the historical events which Jed to the establishment of Swat state, and describes the minor modifications this event has brought about in the orginal system (1959). The theoretical problem In the Introduction to his book, Barth explains that: ‘In Swat, persons find theirMAN, MARCH 1972, VOL, 7, NO. 1 7 place in the political order through a series of choices, many of which are tem porary or revocable’ (p.2); that individuals distinguish ‘between private and group tudvantage, and when faced with a choice they tend to consider the former rather than the latter’ (p. 2) and that “This is most clearly demonstrated by the way in which members of any group may secede and attach themselves to another when this is to their advantage’ (p. 2). Since it follows from ths that ‘che politcal system in Swat [is] the sum ofall the choices of individuals giving their allegiance to others’ (p. 2), Barth adopts a theoretical approach which derives from ‘writers such as Weber. .. who analyses the bases of legitimacy, and deJouvenel.... who sees politcal activity in a means-to~ end framework as directed towards rallying supporters for desired purposes. In such a framework, allegiance is regarded not a something which is given to groups, bat as something which is bartered between individuals against @ recur in other advantages. The system of authority and the alignment of persons in groups is thus in a sense built by the leaders through 2 systematic series of exchanges. This corresponds closely to the Pathan idea of relations between super-and sub-ordinates as reciprocal but differentiating contracts’ (p.), And so the central problem of the book can be stated as being ‘to explore the kinds of relationship that are estab~ lished between persons in Swat, the way in which these may be systematically manipulated to build up positions of authority, and the variety of politically corporate groups which result’ (p. 2). “While the existing [politcal] organization is the result of a mislttude of choices, certain stractaral features of the society’, which Barth refers to as ‘frameworks’, “serve to define and restrict the alternatives which are offered to each actor’ (p.3)- ‘These structural features include the territorial subdivisions of Swat, and the subdivision of its population into groupings of caste and lineage (which arti- calates the land tenure system). In addition, there are other, less formal, frame~ works which also constitute imiting conditions with reference to which individual choices are made—namely, local neighbourhoods and networks of kinship and affinity, Barth is insistent that ‘no position in the above frameworks, of local webs of relationships, necessarily implies allegiance to a particular political offce-holder, co dominance over any specific other person. All relationships implying dominance ae dyadic relationships of a contractual or voluntary nature, The primary elements from which the system of suchority is constructed are such dyadic relations” (p. 3). ‘The frameworks defining individual choice ‘Tertitorially, Swat is divided into thirteen major regions, each subdivided progressively into named local areas, villages and wards. Wards ate composed of hhovses and each howse is occupied by 2 household ‘maintaining itself as an inde- pendent economic unit’ (pp. 15-36). Houses are generally owned by members Of the Pakhtun cast, a is vitwaly all the agricultural land. But Palchtuns form a ‘minority of the total population of Swat, varying in proportion between a fifth and a tenth from one major region to another. The total population is divided into roughly ten major castes which are defined by Barth for the purposes of his study as ‘patrilineal, hereditary, ranked occupational groups, conceptually endogamous’ (@. 16). All Pakhheuns are landowners, but some non-Pakhtuns also own land,6 MAN, MARCH 1972, VOL. 7, NO. 1 Non-Pakhtuns follow a variety of occupations, but most are direcly engaged in agricultural work. The two highest castes are Pakhtuns and Saints—the latter ‘being persons who claim sacred descent. (It seems there is some ambiguity at this point in the caste hierarchy, for ‘Politically powerful Pakhtans can denigrate the sacred status of Saints and claim rank equality with them; Saints on the other hand are adamant in their claim that all Saints ipso fect rank higher than all Pahktuns’ (1960: 140).) TESaints have suintly genealogies legitimating thei high caste position, Pakhtuns have Pakhtun genealogies which validate thir supetior position, For Pakheans as ‘members of the Yusufzai tribe legitimate their rights to land in Swat by traditions cof conquest. These genealogies define a series of segmentary patcilineal groups ‘which correspond to the territorial subdivisions. But this correspondence is direct only in the case of the major region and the sub-tribe, All lower-order lineage segments have rights to shares in land, not to specific plots of land, fora periodic re-allotment takes places once every ten years or so. (At least this was the situation ‘until the 1920's when the founder of Swat state declared the existing allotments to be final) Lineage membership entitles one to attend the tribal assemblies at which administrative issues are discussed and disputes aired. Caste postion, which is acquired by patrilineal descent, in general defines not only one’s rank but also one's occupation. In Swat there are many hereditary ‘occupations, represented by craftsmen such as carpenters and blacksmiths, and by other specialists such as agricultursts and muleteers. Since Swat's is essentially a non-monetary economy, the co-ordination of agricultural workisachieved through. the formation of voluntary multi-caste productive teams, ‘Within such teams each specialitt contibutes with the sills and equipment or resources appropriate to his statu, and receives in rerum 2 fractfon ofthe resultant produet ... The landowner is the pivot on which the organization is based. The team is formed through a series of dyadic contracts between the landlord and each separate specialist; there are no contracts between the diferent specialists, ahough in fact they dicectly coordinate their ‘rork, Similarly, remuneration for services flows from the landlord and not from the persons to whom the actual services were rendered (2960: 120-1). ‘Thus ‘Every man is free to choose to which particular groups—whether they be for politica, economic, recreational or other purposes —he wishes to belong. Caste member- ship merely limits the range of positions to which 2 man can aspire’ (p. 22). This applies not ouly to caste, but also to the other frameworks in terms of which individual choice is made in Swat, including the Pakhtun descent groups. Barth emphasises in this context that Pakhtun descent groups ‘do rot formally form corporate groups for the purpose of political action ... Their main importance is in relation to the land reallotment system, and to the public assemblies for nego- tiating settlements within local communities’ (p. 30). ‘The major frameworks constitute in effect a set of definitions of he rules (jncluding advantages and handicaps) which rational Swati decision-makers must observe when pursuing their political objectives. The political objectives themselves ray be summed up as () the attraction or giving of support through voluntary transactions in which economic rewaeds and military security can be exchanged for economic skills and miliary manpower, and (b) the confrontation of rivals in a