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Pakistan
Index
In August 1947, Pakistan was faced with a number of
problems,
some immediate but others long term. The most important of
these
concerns was the role played by Islam. Was Pakistan to be
a
secular state serving as a homeland for Muslims of the
subcontinent, or was it to be an Islamic state governed by
the
sharia, in which non-Muslims would be second-class
citizens? The
second question concerned the distribution of power
between the
center and the provincial governments, a question that
eventually
led to the dissolution of the country with the painful
loss of
the East Wing (East Bengal, later East Pakistan, now
Bangladesh)
in 1971, an issue that remained unresolved in the
mid-1990s.
The territory of Pakistan was divided into two parts at
independence, separated by about 1,600 kilometers of
Indian
territory. The 1940 Lahore Resolution had called for
independent
"states" in the northwest and the northeast. This
objective was
changed, by a 1946 meeting of Muslim League legislators to
a call
for a single state (the acronym Pakistan had no
letter for
Bengal). Pakistan lacked the machinery, personnel, and
equipment
for a new government. Even its capital, Karachi, was a
second
choice--Lahore was rejected because it was too close to
the
Indian border. Pakistan's economy seemed enviable after
severing
ties with India, the major market for its commodities. And
much
of Punjab's electricity was imported from Indian power
stations.
Above all other concerns were the violence and the
refugee
problem: Muslims were fleeing India; Hindus and Sikhs were
fleeing Pakistan. Jinnah's plea to regard religion as a
personal
matter, not a state matter, was ignored. No one was
prepared for
the communal rioting and the mass movements of population
that
followed the June 3, 1947, London announcement of imminent
independence and partition. The most conservative
estimates of
the casualties were 250,000 dead and 12 million to 24
million
refugees. The actual boundaries of the two new states were
not
even known until August 17, when they were announced by a
commission headed by a British judge. The boundaries--
unacceptable to both India and Pakistan--have remained.
West Pakistan lost Hindus and Sikhs. These communities
had
managed much of the commercial activity of West Pakistan.
The
Sikhs were especially prominent in agricultural colonies.
They
were replaced largely by Muslims from India, mostly Urdu
speakers
from the United Provinces. Although some people,
especially
Muslims from eastern Punjab (in India), settled in western
Punjab
(in Pakistan), many headed for Karachi and other cities in
Sindh,
where they took the jobs vacated by departing Hindus. In
1951
close to half of the population of Pakistan's major cities
were
immigrants (muhajirs--refugees from India and their
descendants).
The aspirations for Pakistan that had been so important
to
Muslims in Muslim-minority provinces and the goals for the
new
state these urban refugees had fled to were not always
compatible
with those of the traditional rural people already
inhabiting
Pakistan, whose support for the concept of Pakistan came
much
later. Pakistani society was polarized from its inception.
The land and people west of the Indus River continued
to pose
problems. The most immediate problem was the continued
presence
of a Congress government in the North-West Frontier
Province, a
government effective at the grassroots level and popular
despite
the loss of the plebiscite. Led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
and
his Khudai-i-Khitmagar (Servants of God, a Congress
faction),
this group was often referred to as the Red Shirts after
its
members' attire. Ghaffar Khan asked his followers not to
participate in the July 1947 plebiscite.
Pakistan also had to establish its legitimacy against a
possible challenge from Afghanistan. Irredentist claims
from
Kabul were based on the ethnic unity of tribes straddling
the
border; the emotional appeal of "Pakhtunistan," homeland
of the
Pakhtuns, was undeniable. However, Pakistan upheld the
treaties
Britain had signed with Afghanistan and refused to discuss
the
validity of the Durand Line as the international border
(see The Forward Policy
, this ch.). Relations with Afghanistan were
hostile, resulting in the rupture of diplomatic and
commercial
relations and leading Afghanistan to cast the only vote
against
Pakistan's admission to the United Nations (UN) in 1947.
The India Independence Act left the princes
theoretically
free to accede to either dominion. The frontier princely
states
of Dir, Chitral, Amb, and Hunza acceded quickly to
Pakistan while
retaining substantial autonomy in internal administration
and
customary law. The khan of Kalat in Balochistan declared
independence on August 15, 1947, but offered to negotiate
a
special relationship with Pakistan. Other Baloch
sardar
(tribal chiefs) also expressed their preference for a
separate
identity. Pakistan took military action against them and
the khan
and brought about their accession in 1948. The state of
Bahawalpur, with a Muslim ruler and a Muslim population,
acceded
to Pakistan, as did Khairpur.
The maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, unpopular among his
subjects, was reluctant to decide on accession to either
dominion. He first signed agreements with both Pakistan
and India
that would provide for the continued flow of people and
goods to
Kashmir--as it is usually called--from both dominions.
Alarmed by
reports of oppression of fellow Muslims in Kashmir, armed
groups
from the North-West Frontier Province entered the
maharaja's
territory. The ruler requested military assistance from
India but
had to sign documents acceding to India before that
country would
provide aid in October 1947.
The government of Pakistan refused to recognize the
accession
and denounced it as a fraud even though the Indian
government
announced that it would require an expression of the
people's
will through a plebiscite after the invaders were driven
back.
Pakistan launched an active military and diplomatic
campaign to
undo the accession. The UN Security Council eventually
brought
about a cease-fire between Pakistani and Indian troops,
which
took place on January 1, 1949, thus ending the first Indo-
Pakistani War, and directed that a plebiscite be held. The
cease-
fire agreement formalized the military status quo, leaving
about
30 percent of Kashmir under Pakistani control
(see India
, ch. 4;
The Formation of Pakistan
, ch. 5).
Partition and its accompanying confusion also brought
severe
economic challenges to the two newly created and
antagonistic
countries. The partition plan ignored the principles of
complementarity. West Pakistan, for example, traditionally
produced more wheat than it consumed and had supplied the
deficit
areas in India. Cotton grown in West Pakistan was used in
mills
in Bombay and other west Indian cities. Commodities such
as coal
and sugar were in short supply in Pakistan--they had
traditionally come from areas now part of India.
Furthermore,
Pakistan faced logistic problems for its commercial
transportation because of the four major ports in British
India,
it was awarded only Karachi. But the problem that proved
most
intractable was defining relations between the two wings
of
Pakistan, which had had little economic exchange before
partition.
The two dominions decided to allow free movement of
goods,
persons, and capital for one year after independence, but
this
agreement broke down. In November 1947, Pakistan levied
export
duties on jute; India retaliated with export duties of its
own.
The trade war reached a crisis in September 1949 when
Britain
devalued the pound, to which both the Pakistani rupee and
the
Indian rupee were pegged. India followed Britain's lead,
but
Pakistan did not, so India severed trade relations with
Pakistan.
The outbreak of the Korean War (1950-53) and the
consequent price
rises in jute, leather, cotton, and wool as a result of
wartime
needs, saved the economy of Pakistan. New trading
relationships
were formed, and the construction of cotton and jute mills
in
Pakistan was quickly undertaken. Although India and
Pakistan
resumed trade in 1951, both the volume and the value of
trade
steadily declined; the two countries ignored bilateral
trade for
the most part and developed the new international trade
links
they had made.
The assets of British India were divided in the ratio
of
seventeen for India to five for Pakistan by decision of
the
Viceroy's Council in June 1947. Division was difficult to
implement, however, and Pakistan complained of
nondeliveries. A
financial agreement was reached in December 1948, but the
actual
settlement of financial and other disputes continued until
1960
(see Structure of the Economy
, ch. 3).
Division of the all-India services of the Indian Civil
Service and the Indian Police Service was also difficult.
Only
101 out of a total of 1,157 Indian officers were Muslim.
Among
these Muslim officers, ninety-five officers opted for
Pakistan;
they were joined by one Christian, eleven Muslim military
officers transferring to civilian service, and fifty
Britons, for
a total of 157. But only twenty of them had had more than
fifteen
years of service, and more than half had had fewer than
ten
years. These men formed the core of the Civil Service of
Pakistan, which became one of the most elite and
privileged
bureaucracies in the world. Members of the Civil Service
of
Pakistan were the architects of the administrative,
judicial, and
diplomatic services. They proved indispensable in running
the
government machinery during Pakistan's first two decades,
and
their contributions to government policy and economics
were
profound during the era of Mohammad Ayub Khan. The
Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto government in the 1970s precipitated a major
reorganization and reorientation of the bureaucracy,
however,
which resulted in a noticeable decline in both the morale
and the
standards of the bureaucracy
(see
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and a New Constitutional System;
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, 1971-77
, ch.
4).
Data as of April 1994
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Quaid-i-Azam
Courtesy Embassy of Pakistan, Washington
Liaquat Ali Khan, the Quaid-i-Millet
Courtesy Embassy of Pakistan, Washington
Problems at Independence
In August 1947, Pakistan was faced with a number of
problems,
some immediate but others long term. The most important of
these
concerns was the role played by Islam. Was Pakistan to be
a
secular state serving as a homeland for Muslims of the
subcontinent, or was it to be an Islamic state governed by
the
sharia, in which non-Muslims would be second-class
citizens? The
second question concerned the distribution of power
between the
center and the provincial governments, a question that
eventually
led to the dissolution of the country with the painful
loss of
the East Wing (East Bengal, later East Pakistan, now
Bangladesh)
in 1971, an issue that remained unresolved in the
mid-1990s.
The territory of Pakistan was divided into two parts at
independence, separated by about 1,600 kilometers of
Indian
territory. The 1940 Lahore Resolution had called for
independent
"states" in the northwest and the northeast. This
objective was
changed, by a 1946 meeting of Muslim League legislators to
a call
for a single state (the acronym Pakistan had no
letter for
Bengal). Pakistan lacked the machinery, personnel, and
equipment
for a new government. Even its capital, Karachi, was a
second
choice--Lahore was rejected because it was too close to
the
Indian border. Pakistan's economy seemed enviable after
severing
ties with India, the major market for its commodities. And
much
of Punjab's electricity was imported from Indian power
stations.
Above all other concerns were the violence and the
refugee
problem: Muslims were fleeing India; Hindus and Sikhs were
fleeing Pakistan. Jinnah's plea to regard religion as a
personal
matter, not a state matter, was ignored. No one was
prepared for
the communal rioting and the mass movements of population
that
followed the June 3, 1947, London announcement of imminent
independence and partition. The most conservative
estimates of
the casualties were 250,000 dead and 12 million to 24
million
refugees. The actual boundaries of the two new states were
not
even known until August 17, when they were announced by a
commission headed by a British judge. The boundaries--
unacceptable to both India and Pakistan--have remained.
West Pakistan lost Hindus and Sikhs. These communities
had
managed much of the commercial activity of West Pakistan.
The
Sikhs were especially prominent in agricultural colonies.
They
were replaced largely by Muslims from India, mostly Urdu
speakers
from the United Provinces. Although some people,
especially
Muslims from eastern Punjab (in India), settled in western
Punjab
(in Pakistan), many headed for Karachi and other cities in
Sindh,
where they took the jobs vacated by departing Hindus. In
1951
close to half of the population of Pakistan's major cities
were
immigrants (muhajirs--refugees from India and their
descendants).
The aspirations for Pakistan that had been so important
to
Muslims in Muslim-minority provinces and the goals for the
new
state these urban refugees had fled to were not always
compatible
with those of the traditional rural people already
inhabiting
Pakistan, whose support for the concept of Pakistan came
much
later. Pakistani society was polarized from its inception.
The land and people west of the Indus River continued
to pose
problems. The most immediate problem was the continued
presence
of a Congress government in the North-West Frontier
Province, a
government effective at the grassroots level and popular
despite
the loss of the plebiscite. Led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
and
his Khudai-i-Khitmagar (Servants of God, a Congress
faction),
this group was often referred to as the Red Shirts after
its
members' attire. Ghaffar Khan asked his followers not to
participate in the July 1947 plebiscite.
Pakistan also had to establish its legitimacy against a
possible challenge from Afghanistan. Irredentist claims
from
Kabul were based on the ethnic unity of tribes straddling
the
border; the emotional appeal of "Pakhtunistan," homeland
of the
Pakhtuns, was undeniable. However, Pakistan upheld the
treaties
Britain had signed with Afghanistan and refused to discuss
the
validity of the Durand Line as the international border
(see The Forward Policy
, this ch.). Relations with Afghanistan were
hostile, resulting in the rupture of diplomatic and
commercial
relations and leading Afghanistan to cast the only vote
against
Pakistan's admission to the United Nations (UN) in 1947.
The India Independence Act left the princes
theoretically
free to accede to either dominion. The frontier princely
states
of Dir, Chitral, Amb, and Hunza acceded quickly to
Pakistan while
retaining substantial autonomy in internal administration
and
customary law. The khan of Kalat in Balochistan declared
independence on August 15, 1947, but offered to negotiate
a
special relationship with Pakistan. Other Baloch
sardar
(tribal chiefs) also expressed their preference for a
separate
identity. Pakistan took military action against them and
the khan
and brought about their accession in 1948. The state of
Bahawalpur, with a Muslim ruler and a Muslim population,
acceded
to Pakistan, as did Khairpur.
The maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, unpopular among his
subjects, was reluctant to decide on accession to either
dominion. He first signed agreements with both Pakistan
and India
that would provide for the continued flow of people and
goods to
Kashmir--as it is usually called--from both dominions.
Alarmed by
reports of oppression of fellow Muslims in Kashmir, armed
groups
from the North-West Frontier Province entered the
maharaja's
territory. The ruler requested military assistance from
India but
had to sign documents acceding to India before that
country would
provide aid in October 1947.
The government of Pakistan refused to recognize the
accession
and denounced it as a fraud even though the Indian
government
announced that it would require an expression of the
people's
will through a plebiscite after the invaders were driven
back.
Pakistan launched an active military and diplomatic
campaign to
undo the accession. The UN Security Council eventually
brought
about a cease-fire between Pakistani and Indian troops,
which
took place on January 1, 1949, thus ending the first Indo-
Pakistani War, and directed that a plebiscite be held. The
cease-
fire agreement formalized the military status quo, leaving
about
30 percent of Kashmir under Pakistani control
(see India
, ch. 4;
The Formation of Pakistan
, ch. 5).
Partition and its accompanying confusion also brought
severe
economic challenges to the two newly created and
antagonistic
countries. The partition plan ignored the principles of
complementarity. West Pakistan, for example, traditionally
produced more wheat than it consumed and had supplied the
deficit
areas in India. Cotton grown in West Pakistan was used in
mills
in Bombay and other west Indian cities. Commodities such
as coal
and sugar were in short supply in Pakistan--they had
traditionally come from areas now part of India.
Furthermore,
Pakistan faced logistic problems for its commercial
transportation because of the four major ports in British
India,
it was awarded only Karachi. But the problem that proved
most
intractable was defining relations between the two wings
of
Pakistan, which had had little economic exchange before
partition.
The two dominions decided to allow free movement of
goods,
persons, and capital for one year after independence, but
this
agreement broke down. In November 1947, Pakistan levied
export
duties on jute; India retaliated with export duties of its
own.
The trade war reached a crisis in September 1949 when
Britain
devalued the pound, to which both the Pakistani rupee and
the
Indian rupee were pegged. India followed Britain's lead,
but
Pakistan did not, so India severed trade relations with
Pakistan.
The outbreak of the Korean War (1950-53) and the
consequent price
rises in jute, leather, cotton, and wool as a result of
wartime
needs, saved the economy of Pakistan. New trading
relationships
were formed, and the construction of cotton and jute mills
in
Pakistan was quickly undertaken. Although India and
Pakistan
resumed trade in 1951, both the volume and the value of
trade
steadily declined; the two countries ignored bilateral
trade for
the most part and developed the new international trade
links
they had made.
The assets of British India were divided in the ratio
of
seventeen for India to five for Pakistan by decision of
the
Viceroy's Council in June 1947. Division was difficult to
implement, however, and Pakistan complained of
nondeliveries. A
financial agreement was reached in December 1948, but the
actual
settlement of financial and other disputes continued until
1960
(see Structure of the Economy
, ch. 3).
Division of the all-India services of the Indian Civil
Service and the Indian Police Service was also difficult.
Only
101 out of a total of 1,157 Indian officers were Muslim.
Among
these Muslim officers, ninety-five officers opted for
Pakistan;
they were joined by one Christian, eleven Muslim military
officers transferring to civilian service, and fifty
Britons, for
a total of 157. But only twenty of them had had more than
fifteen
years of service, and more than half had had fewer than
ten
years. These men formed the core of the Civil Service of
Pakistan, which became one of the most elite and
privileged
bureaucracies in the world. Members of the Civil Service
of
Pakistan were the architects of the administrative,
judicial, and
diplomatic services. They proved indispensable in running
the
government machinery during Pakistan's first two decades,
and
their contributions to government policy and economics
were
profound during the era of Mohammad Ayub Khan. The
Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto government in the 1970s precipitated a major
reorganization and reorientation of the bureaucracy,
however,
which resulted in a noticeable decline in both the morale
and the
standards of the bureaucracy
(see
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and a New Constitutional System;
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, 1971-77
, ch.
4).
Data as of April 1994
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