The Mazdoor Kissan (Workers and Peasants) Party (MKP) emerged from a split along the lines of the Sino-Soviet rift within the National Awami Party in 1968. As a Maoist outlet, the MKP championed a program of “people’s revolution” that trained its energies on the countryside, propagating armed struggle against the postcolonial state in Pakistan. Its biggest success came in Hashtnagar in 1970, where party cadres joined a peasant movement to liberate 200 hectares of land in Pakistan’s northern Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa region. The movement inspired similar struggles all over Pakistan, and the Punjab MKP initiated similar kissan movements in their region. The party did not attain successes like the Hashtnagar uprising in Punjab, however, its politics and ideology have left an indelible mark on cultural politics in the region.

For a detailed study of the party’s history in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, see Ali, Noaman. 2019. The Hashtnagar Peasant Movement: Agrarian Class Struggle, Hegemony and State Formation in Northwestern Pakistan, 1947-1986. Unpublished thesis. University of Toronto.