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Pakistan
Index
At independence Jinnah was the supreme authority. An
accomplished politician, he won independence for Pakistan
within
seven years of the Lahore Resolution and was hailed by his
followers as the Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader). As governor
general, he assumed the ceremonial functions of head of
state
while taking on effective power as head of government,
dominating
his prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan (the Quaid-i-Millet,
or
Leader of the Nation). To these roles, he added the
leadership of
the Muslim League and the office of president of the
Constituent
Assembly.
Although Jinnah had led the movement for Pakistan as a
separate Muslim nation, he was appalled by the communal
riots and
urged equal rights for all citizens irrespective of
religion.
Jinnah died in September 1948--only thirteen months after
independence--leaving his successors to tackle the
problems of
Pakistan's identity.
Jinnah's acknowledged lieutenant, Liaquat Ali Khan,
assumed
leadership and continued in the position of prime
minister. Born
to a Punjabi landed family, Liaquat used his experience in
law to
attempt to frame a constitution along the lines of the
British
Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. He failed
in large
part because neither the Muslim League nor the Constituent
Assembly was equipped to resolve in a parliamentary manner
the
problems and conflicts of the role of Islam and the degree
of
autonomy for the provinces. Liaquat's term of office ended
when
he was assassinated in Rawalpindi in October 1951. He was
replaced by Khwaja Nazimuddin, who stepped down as
governor
general; Nazimuddin was replaced as governor general by
Ghulam
Mohammad, the former minister of finance.
The Muslim League, unlike Congress, had not prepared
itself
for a postindependence role. Congress had constitutional,
economic, social, and even foreign policy plans in place
before
independence and was ready to put them into effect when
the time
came. The Muslim League was so preoccupied with the
struggle for
Pakistan that it was poorly prepared for effective
government.
Its leaders were largely urban professionals whose
political base
was mainly in areas that were in India. In the areas that
had
become Pakistan, its base was weak. Landlords with
ascriptive and
inherited privileges were uncomfortable with procedures of
decision making through debate, discussion, compromise,
and
majority vote. The Muslim League was a party with little
grassroots support, a weak organizational structure,
powerful
factional leaders, and decisions made at the top. Although
Ghulam
Mohammad tried to exercise the "viceregal" power that
Jinnah had
used so powerfully as governor general, concern for office
and
the fruits of power were more important to most of the
politicians than the evolution of ideology or the
implementation
of mass programs. The effect of this lack of direction was
shown
most clearly when the Muslim League was routed in the 1954
election in East Pakistan by the United Front--mainly a
coalition
of the Awami League and the Krishak Sramik Party, led by
two
one-time Muslim League members, Hussain Shahid Suhrawardy
and
Fazlul Haq, who ran on an autonomist platform. Other
parties
established during this period included the leftist
National
Awami Party (a breakaway from the Awami League), which
also
supported provincial autonomy. Islamic parties also made
their
appearance on the electoral scene, most notably the
Jamaat-i-Islami.
The Muslim League was held responsible for the
deterioration
of politics and society after independence and had to
answer for
its failure to fulfill people's high expectations. There
was a
rising level of opposition and frustration and an
increasing use
of repressive laws inherited from the British or enacted
by
Pakistan that included preventive detention and rules
prohibiting
the gathering of more than five persons. In 1949 the
Public and
Representative Office Disqualification Act (PRODA) allowed
the
government to disqualify persons found guilty of
"misconduct," a
term that acquired a broad definition. In 1952 the
Security of
Pakistan Act expanded the powers of the government in the
interests of public order.
The armed forces also posed a threat to Liaquat's
government,
which was less hostile toward India than some officers
wished. In
March 1951, Major General Mohammad Akbar Khan, chief of
the
general staff, was arrested along with fourteen other
officers on
charges of plotting a coup d'état. The authors of what
became
known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy were tried in secret,
convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment. All were
subsequently
released.
Pakistan's first Constituent Assembly was made up of
members
of the prepartition Indian Constituent Assembly who
represented
areas that had gone to Pakistan. The body's eighty members
functioned as the legislature of Pakistan. As a
constitution-making body, the assembly's only achievement
was the
Objectives Resolution of March 1949, which specified that
Pakistan would be Islamic, democratic, and federal. But
the
assembly could not reach agreement on how these objectives
would
take form, raising fears among minorities and concern
among East
Bengalis. Other important matters remained equally
problematic--
the division of executive power between the governor
general and
the prime minister; the distribution of power between the
center
and the provinces; the balance of power, especially
electoral,
between the two wings; and the role of Islam in the
government.
With the 1951 assassination of Liaquat, resolution of
these
issues became unlikely.
During the years after Liaquat's assassination, none of
these
problems were resolved, and a major confrontation occurred
between the governor general, Ghulam Mohammad, a Punjabi
from the
civil service, and the prime minister, Nazimuddin, a
former chief
minister of united Bengal and now chief minister of East
Bengal.
Ghulam Mohammad, who relished the trappings of dominance
earlier
held by Jinnah, asserted his power by declaring martial
law in
1953 in Punjab during disturbances involving the
Ahmadiyyas, a
small but influential sect considered heterodox by
orthodox
Muslims, and a year later by imposing governor's rule
after the
Muslim League defeat in East Bengal, not permitting the
United
Front to take office. When Nazimuddin attempted to limit
the
power of the governor general through amendments to the
Government of India Act of 1935--then still the basic law
for
Pakistan, as altered by the India Independence Act of
1947--
Ghulam Mohammad unceremoniously dismissed him in April
1953, and
then the following year appointed his own "cabinet of
talents,"
dismissing the Constituent Assembly.
The so-called cabinet of talents was headed by Mohammad
Ali
Bogra, a minor political figure from East Bengal who had
previously been Pakistan's ambassador to the United
States.
Significantly, the cabinet also included both military and
civil
officials. Chaudhuri Mohammad Ali, who had been head of
the Civil
Service of Pakistan, became minister of finance. General
Mohammad
Ayub Khan became minister of defense while retaining his
post as
commander in chief of the army. Major General Iskander
Mirza, a
military officer who was seconded to civilian posts,
including
becoming governor of East Bengal when Ghulam Mohammad
imposed
governor's rule on that province, became minister of home
affairs. The cabinet thus provided an opportunity for the
military to take a direct role in politics. Ghulam
Mohammad was
successful in subordinating the prime minister because of
the
support of military and civil officers as well as the
backing of
the strong landed interests in Punjab. The facade of
parliamentary government crumbled, exposing the military's
role
in Pakistan's political system to public view.
The revived Constituent Assembly convened in 1955. It
differed in composition from the first such assembly
because of
the notable reduction of Muslim League members and the
presence
of a United Front coalition from East Bengal. Provincial
autonomy
was the main plank of the United Front. Also in 1955,
failing
health and the ascendancy of General Iskander Mirza forced
Ghulam
Mohammad to resign as governor general. He died the
following
year.
In 1956 the Constituent Assembly adopted a constitution
that
proclaimed Pakistan an Islamic republic and contained
directives
for the establishment of an Islamic state. It also renamed
the
Constituent Assembly the Legislative Assembly. The
lawyer-politicians who led the Pakistan movement used the
principles and legal precedents of a nonreligious British
parliamentary tradition even while they advanced the idea
of
Muslim nationhood as an axiom. Many of them represented a
liberal
movement in Islam, in which their personal religion was
compatible with Western technology and political
institutions.
They saw the basis for democratic processes and tolerance
in the
Islamic tradition of ijma (consensus of the
community) and
ijtihad (the concept of continuing interpretations
of
Islamic law). Most of Pakistan's intelligentsia and
Westernized
elites belonged to the group of ijma modernists
(see Religious Life
, ch. 2).
In contrast stood the traditionalist ulama, whose
position
was a legalistic one based on the unity of religion and
politics
in Islam. The ulama asserted that the Quran, the
sunna (see Glossary),
and the sharia provided the general principles
for all
aspects of life if correctly interpreted and applied. The
government's duty, therefore, was to recognize the role of
the
ulama in the interpretation of the law. Because the ulama
and the
less-learned mullahs (Muslim clerics) enjoyed influence
among the
masses, especially in urban areas, and because no
politician
could afford to be denounced as anti-Islamic, none dared
publicly
to ignore them. Nevertheless, they were not given powers
of legal
interpretation until the Muhammad Zia ul-Haq regime of
1977-88
(see
Zia ul-Haq and Military Domination, 1977-88;
Early Political Development
, ch. 4).
The lawyer-politicians
making
decisions in the 1950s almost without exception preferred
the
courts and legal institutions they inherited from the
British.
Another interpretation of Islam was provided by an
Islamist
movement in Pakistan, regarded in some quarters as
fundamentalist. Its most significant organization was the
Jamaat-i-Islami, which gradually built up support among
the
refugees, the urban lower middle-class, and students
(see Jamaat-i-Islami
, ch. 4). Unlike the traditional ulama, the
Islamist
movement was the outcome of modern Islamic idealism.
Crucial in
the constitutional and political development of Pakistan,
it
forced politicians to face the question of Islamic
identity. On
occasion, definitions of Islamic identity resulted in
violent
controversy, as in Punjab during the early 1950s when
agitation
was directed against the Ahmadiyyas. In the mid-1970s, the
Ahmadiyyas were declared to be non-Muslims by the
government of
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1971-77) and the Organization of the
Islamic
Conference (OIC), based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia.
During the 1950s, however, the fundamentalist movement
led by
Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the founder and leader of the
Jamaat-i-Islami, succeeded only in introducing Islamic
principles
into the 1956 constitution. A nonjudiciable section called
the
Directive Principles of State Policy attempted to define
ways in
which the Islamic way of life and Islamic moral standards
could
be pursued. The principles contained injunctions against
the
consumption of alcohol and the practice of usury. The
substance
of the 1956 clauses reappeared in the 1962 constitution,
but the
Islamist cause was undefeated. Sharia courts were
established
under Zia, and under Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif in
the
early 1990s, the sharia was proclaimed the basic law of
the land.
Data as of April 1994
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