Piety, Populism and Capitalism: How a New Islamist Party Politicizes a Religious Ethic of Selfless Devotion to the Prophet through an Economic Ethic of Self-Reliance in Pakistan

Moving beyond approaches to populism as ‘empty-signifier discourse’, ‘thin-centered ideology’, or ‘strategy to win elections’, this paper centers the role of party organizations in the process of articulation of populist politics, Islamic piety, and capitalist social relations. It examines the rise of a new Islamist party in Pakistan, the Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), or the Movement for Submission to the Will of the Prophet, that has emerged as the third option in Punjab province’s politics, traditionally dominated by clientelist parties. The TLP glorifies vigilantism, encouraging pious Muslims to protect the Prophet’s honor by killing blasphemers without relying on the state that it believes has been captured by liberals who want to secularize the society. Based on a year-long ethnography with TLP’s organizers, the paper demonstrates how the party politicizes an Islamic ethic of selfless devotion to the Prophet through a neoliberal ethic of self-reliance. The TLP’s rise has occurred within a crisis of hegemony triggered by IMF-mandated reforms for the debt-dependent Pakistani economy. The party frames economic hardship from disappearance of dignified jobs and a stagflation crisis as a sign of divine wrath over the elite’s betrayal of the promise to establish an Islamic society. As the elite politicians' ability to provide patronage to slums residents weakens under austerity, the TLP leaders fill the gap through organizational practices like philanthropy, mutual aid, mosque takeovers, and building informal workers and professionals associations. In turn, the followers strive to become selflessly devoted to the Prophet through self-reliance, politically in the form of vigilantism, protest participation and neighborhood organizing, and economically through ownership of small businesses, pursuit of pious employers, or gaining of digital skills to become freelancers. By studying populist politics through pious self-making practices and transformations in everyday social relations, the paper contributes a synthesis of Foucauldian and neo-Marxist approaches to populism.