Professional Documents
Culture Documents
com Pakistan
http://www.dawn.com/news/1128832
1 | Page
any people who, as young men and women, took part in the
widespread protest movement against the military rule of Ayub
Khan in the late 1960s suggest that Ayub relinquished power
after he was told what some of the protesters had started to call him. In 1968
at the height of the movement against him, young protesters in Karachi and
Lahore began describing him as a dog (Ayub Khan Kutta!). This was a time
when politicians and rulers in Pakistan hardly ever used any derogatory
language against their opponents, so Ayub was supposedly shocked when he
heard that some of his children (the term he used to describe his subjects),
had called him a dog.
Ayub had come to power in 1958 on the back of a popular military coup
(Pakistans first), and had enjoyed a significant run of admiration from a
majority of Pakistanis in the first four years of his dictatorship.
Vowing to make Pakistan a powerful and influential military-industrial
state, Ayub encouraged and facilitated an unprecedented growth in the
process of industrialisation in the country. He also initiated the
introduction of technical innovations in agriculture and brought Pakistan
closer to the United States, thus benefitting from the military and financial
aid that came with the enhanced relationship.
By 1961 the Ayub regime had largely restored the countrys economy
that had begun to weaken from the mid-1950s onwards, mainly due to the
political chaos that prevailed in the country, as various factions of
Pakistans first ruling party, the Muslim League, indulged in constant
infighting and intrigues, and were unable to address the growing
disenchantment and cynicism exhibited towards politicians by those who
were kept out from the political process dominated by the countrys
political-bureaucratic elite.
Ayub was at the height of his power and popularity when he decided to
lift Martial Law in 1962 and restore at least a semblance of political activity
by the parties that had been banned in 1958. He became the president and
handpicked an assembly through a complex electoral system that he called
Basic Democracy. After discarding the 1956 Constitution, his assembly
passed a brand new constitution that enshrined Ayubs idea of Jinnahs
Pakistan. It revolved around the construction of a strong militaryindustrial state, propped-up by state-backed capitalism, free enterprise,
agricultural reforms and a progressive interpretation of Islam that was
compatible with science, technology and modernity.
Ayub detested politicians, from both the left as well as the right. His
regime came down hard on left-wing parties and then went on to also ban
2 | Page
parties such as the Jamat-i-Islami ( JI) though the ban was overturned
by the courts. Leftists accused him of encouraging crony capitalism, the
exploitation of workers and the suppression of the rights and ethnicnationalism of the Bengalis (in East Pakistan), Sindhis, the Baloch and the
Pakhtun, and of dislodging the Urdu-speaking (the Mohajirs) from
important state and government institutions that they had helped build
after Pakistans creation in 1947. The religious right denounced him of
being overtly secular and undermining Pakistans Islamic culture and
traditions. Ayub easily glided through the many periodical protests that
took place against him after 1962 and then won a second term as president
in a controversial presidential race in 1965.
Buoyed by his victory and his status as a benevolent dictator, Ayub
then made an uncharacteristic mistake by allowing himself to be convinced
by the hawks in his cabinet (led by his young foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto), to crown his economic and political achievements with a military
triumph against India.
India had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese
army in 1962 and Bhutto and his supporters in the cabinet were convinced
that the Pakistan army would be able to crush the weakened Indian armed
forces.
Though the Pakistani armed forces made rapid gains in the initial
period of the 1965 war, the conflict soon turned into a stalemate. Ayub
settled for a ceasefire, apparently sending Bhutto into a rage. Ayub eased
out Bhutto from the government but the damage was done. The war had
drained the countrys resources and the economy began to slide.
Ayubs opponents accused him of losing the war on the negotiation
table. Bhutto went on to form the PPP, and along with the already
established left-wing groups, such as the National Awami Party (NAP) and
the National Students Federation (NSF), he became the most prominent
face of left-wing opposition in West Pakistan.
In East Pakistan, Shiekh Mujeebur Rehmans Awami League (AL),
upped the ante against the regime and accused it of leaving East Pakistan
open to an Indian attack during the 1965 war.
As the Bengali nationalist movement led by AL and by various
militant/Maoist Bengali nationalist groups in East Pakistan gathered pace,
in West Pakistan, Ayub was suddenly faced by a spontaneous students
movement when in October 1968, a large contingent from the NSF gatecrashed a ceremony being held by the government at Lahores Fortress
Stadium (to celebrate the governments Decade of Progress).
3 | Page
The students began to chant anti-Ayub slogans and clashed with the
police. They accused the regime of enriching a handful of cronies and letting
everyone else suffer unemployment and economic hardship. Then in
November 1968, police opened fire on a left-wing student rally in
Rawalpindi, killing three protesters.
In response, students formed a Students Action Committee and
announced that students across Pakistan would begin a concentrated
protest movement against the regime.
As the students began their campaign (with most of the student groups
demanding a socialist system and parliamentary democracy), Bhuttos PPP
joined the fray along with NAP and their entry brought with it the
participation in the movement of the radical trade and labour unions that
were associated with these parties.
By late 1968 the movement had spread beyond Karachi, Lahore,
Rawalpindi and Peshawar and reached the smaller cities and towns of
Punjab and Sindh. Meanwhile in East Pakistan, AL and other Bengali
nationalist groups began to demand complete provincial autonomy for East
Pakistan.
Schools, colleges and universities stopped functioning; workers went on
strike and closed down a number of factories, and white-collar
professionals refused to attend office, further crippling an already
deteriorating political and economic order.
After failing to quell the protests (through police action and wide-scale
arrests), Ayub invited opposition parties to hold a dialogue with the
government. But the PPP and NAP boycotted the negotiations that were
largely attended by religious parties and some moderate right-wing parties.
However, Mujeebs AL did participate, but the talks ultimately broke down.
By early 1969 the movement had also been joined by peasant
committees and organisations in the countrys rural areas. In March 1969 a
group of senior military men advised Ayub to step down, fearing the
eruption of a full-scale civil war in East Pakistan and political and social
anarchy in the countrys west wing.
A weakened and tired Ayub finally decided to throw-in the towel and
resigned, handing over power to General Yahya Khan who immediately
imposed the countrys second martial law.
He promised to hold the countrys first general election based on adult
franchise and to relinquish power after introducing parliamentary
democracy in Pakistan. With this announcement, the movement came to a
halt.
4 | Page
Elections were held in 1970. In East Pakistan the AL won 98 per cent of
the allotted national and provincial assembly seats, whereas in West
Pakistan, the PPP swept the polls in the regions two largest provinces,
Punjab and Sindh. NAP performed well in the former NWFP and
Balochistan. Most of the status quo parties (such as the many Muslim
League factions) and most religious outfits (except Jamiat Ulema Islam)
were decimated.
However, a three-way deadlock between AL, PPP and the Yahya regime
(over a power-sharing formula) regime triggered a crisis that finally saw the
feared eruption of a civil war in East Pakistan and then Indias entry into
the conflict.
After that disastrous conflict, a group of military officers (most of them
Bhutto sympathisers), forced Yahya to resign and then invited Bhutto and
his party to form the countrys first parliamentary government.
Ayub, who had gone into seclusion, died in 1974.
Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 31, 2014
5 | Page
akistanis are a forgiving lot. They are even more forgiving of the
dead. Civil and military dictators, fascists, hate-spewing clerics, and
vigilantes end up with disciples, and at times, even with a shrine.
Military dictators are slightly more fortunate. An army of repute defenders,
in uniform and civvies, continues singing the praise of the golden era when
the General Sahib once ruled. They reminisce about the days when honey
and milk flowed in ravines and open drains, and when the economic growth
rivalled that of South Korea or some other Asian tiger or cat.
October 27 marked the 58th anniversary of the Martial Law imposed
by General Ayub Khan. Given that we have the advantage of hindsight, we
can revisit the 'golden days' to test the veracity of the claims of bounty and
harmony that are usually retailed, yet seldom verified.
Political leaders of all stripes and tenor must envy the good repute
General Ayub Khan continues to enjoy almost 50 years after he reluctantly
relinquished power. The popular discourse about the Ayub era (1958
1969) is that of economic growth, prosperity, and the growing stature of
Pakistan on the world stage. However, the economic realities of the time are
much less glamorous, if not dismal.
An objective review of General Ayub Khans policies and actions
suggests that his primary motive was to sustain and prolong his rule as his
regime sowed the seed, and generously watered the plant, for Bangladesh's
6 | Page
8 | Page
of discontent, violence, and ultimately caused the splitting of East and West
Pakistan.
and religion to impose on twentieth century man the condition that he must go
back several centuries in order to prove his bonafides as a true Muslim.
General Ayub's most significant and long lasting contribution is the
promulgation of Muslim Family Laws Ordinance in 1961 that empowered
women, especially in the matters of marriage and divorce.
Though the commission that drafted the recommendations was
constituted in 1954, the Ayub regime took steps to implement the laws
empowering women. Before the family laws were enacted, neither
marriages or divorces were required to be registered with the state. This
created severe hardships for divorced women, some of whom eventually
remarried. Their former husbands could, and some even did out of malice,
accuse them of adultery since the women lacked proof of divorce from the
first husband.
The new laws also required men who desired a second wife to seek
formal consent from the first wife. In summary, the acts and ordinances
introduced by the Ayub regime discouraged polygyny, protected the rights
of wives and granted the rights of inheritance to grandchildren.
Just two days later, the Chief Justice was forced to tender an apology for
offending army officers.
Pakistan, despite its struggles with rule of law, violence, and crumbling
infrastructure, is stronger today because no one can dare force a Chief
Justice to apologise for upholding the Constitution and the principles of
democracy.
13 | P a g e
Objectives Resolution:
the root of religious
orthodoxy
Published Jun 20, 2010 12:00am
The rising tide of bigotry of orthodoxy in the context of traditionalist
Islam and religious militancy are closely related, and they owe their
origin directly to the policies which have been pursued by the so-called
westernised Muslims in Pakistan. Madressah of course is where orthodoxy
begins. And the sectarian propaganda has been spread through the pulpit
and by pamphleteering in the country. The religious leaders by themselves
however could not have created the present state of affairs in Pakistan.
It is a sequence of historical events which cannot be neatly established
in a chain of cause and effect but nevertheless has created a cumulative
impact of such a force as to have threatened the very raison d'etre of the
country. Significant turning points are the Objectives Resolution, the
campaign of militant religious leaders against Ayub Khan regime, and
massive compromises made by Z.A. Bhutto with the religious leaders. Then
of course the country went through eleven years of rule by General Ziaul
Haq, and post-Ziaul Haq period is still alive and well, including the 18th
Amendment. Many parts of this story are familiar to the informed reader,
but it needs to be re-told to refresh our perspective. In this article, I propose
to confine my discussion to the Objectives Resolution leaving the other
subjects for a later opportunity.
On the eve of the establishment of Pakistan, the founder of Pakistan and
President of the new Constituent Assembly, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad
Ali Jinnah, offered his vision for the new country where the citizens might
belong to any caste, creed or religion, but it would have nothing to do with
14 | P a g e
the business of the state. . . because that was the personal faith of each
individual. . . . The question whether it was a clear call for the establishment
of a secular state is difficult to answer (he had tolerated Islamic slogans
during the Pakistan movement). But putting together several speeches and
statements he made in the course of the next few months, it seems that he
anticipated Pakistan to be a Muslim state based on principles of Islamic
justice, a state that could not commit itself to the mode of any major sect.
Raja of Mahmudabad, who was a member of the Muslim League working
committee and a long-time family friend, in his autobiography, also suggests
that Jinnah's concept for Pakistan was of a Muslim state where no sectarian
group was dominant over others.
Within six months after Jinnah's death, Liaquat Ali Khan who had been
a loyal lieutenant in his high command introduced the Objectives
Resolution to lay the foundation for a constitution for the country. The
opening sentence of the Resolution confirms the limits for the state as
prescribed by God who has sovereignty over the entire universe. It declares
that by His authority delegated to the State of Pakistan through its people
Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in accordance with Islam, and
that adequate provisions shall be made for the minorities to profess and
practise their religion freely. It also affirms the principles of democracy,
freedom, equality and social justice.
Obviously the thrust of the Objectives Resolution contradicts the
vision of Jinnah as mentioned above. The question is whether it was Jinnah's
vision or Liaquat Ali Khan's image about future Pakistan which represented
the true aspirations of Pakistanis of that generation. The developments that
followed the Resolution would be important to establish the context in this
regard. For this purpose, we can focus on the main highlights of the period
from 1950 when Basic Principles Committee (BPC) started the task of
constitution-making to 1956 when the first constitution was enforced.
A part of the answer is easily available. If Pakistan according to the
Resolution was a religious expression (to borrow the phrase from Lawrence
Ziring), then the members of the Constituent Assembly should have
started to ponder over the process by which this expression was to be
actually realised. The main business which occupied the attention of the
members, however, was on issues such as joint versus separate electoral
system, or how to establish weight system in voting to correct the
demographic imbalance between East and West Pakistan. A political
impasse had completely engulfed the Assembly and the crisis of
constitution-making came to an end mercifully with the dissolution of the
15 | P a g e
Smokers Corner:
Ayubs republic
17 | P a g e
holding the perception as is, but the ego now wanted it to evolve further.
This egos desire to do so now meant a war not only against the infidels, but
against the state and society as well.
So what the Pakistan military establishment under Gen Raheel is now
attempting to do is to construct a brand new narrative which could replace the
one that has failed to find relevance in the post-9/11 scenario, and has, in fact,
become a major thorn in the side of the Pakistani state and polity.
This again is a pragmatic move, and it should be. But it will require some
ideology as well, especially in a country whose polity has been heavily
indoctrinated in understanding Pakistan as an ideological state.
Part of the answer to this may lie in an interesting period of Pakistans
history. That period constitutes the Ayub Khan regime (1958-69). Much
can be learned from it about what to do and what not to, in the context of
what the military is now attempting to achieve.
Ayub Khan imposed Pakistans first Martial Law in 1958 with the
backing of an all-powerful president, Iskandar Mirza. Mirza and Ayub
blamed rising corruption, a spiraling economy, and political chaos as
reasons for the Martial Law. Both then went on to describe the 1956
Constitution as the selling of religion for political gains.
The Constitution had renamed the country, Islamic Republic of
Pakistan. Mirza and Ayub changed it to just Pakistan. Both were of the view
that Pakistan was created as a modern Muslim-majority state by
Mohammad Ali Jinnah and not a theological one.
Mirza was ousted by Ayub just 20 days after the coup, and Ayub became
the president in 1959. Ayubs coup was a popular one. This gave him the
leeway to aggressively deflect (through policy) all he thought could be
detrimental to a young country.
He was allergic to leftists (who he believed were anarchic and disruptive
expressions of progressive thought); and religious outfits repulsed him (who
he accused of being ill-informed about Islam, backward and archaic). In a
1960 speech, he claimed: Pakistan was not achieved to create a priest-ridden
culture but it was created to evolve an enlightened society
He then continued: In fact, it is a great injustice to both life and religion
to impose on 20th century man the condition that he must go back several
centuries in order to prove his credentials as a true Muslim
In Political & Social Transformation, Dr Anita M. Weiss writes that
Ayub believed in a synthesis of modernist and traditionalist interpretations
of Islam in order to make it compatible with changing modes of time. In a
19 | P a g e
1985 essay, renowned Islamic researcher and scholar, late Dr Fazal Rehman
Malik, wrote that during the first phase of the Ayub regime (1958-65), there
was an important development as the era pushed the confused and
ambiguous attitudes of the earlier official Modernists towards a clarity
making Islamic Modernism different from the fundamentalist
conservatives (sic) . . .
Ayubs policies based on his understanding of Islamic Modernism
were seen as secular and Westernised by the religious parties, especially
when he banned polygamy and the 1962 Constitution renamed the country,
Republic of Pakistan. In 1964, he banned the Jamaat-i-Islami ( JI). But
Ayubs popularity was such that he remained unmoved, even though,
eventually he had to alter his radical family planning policies; again redefine
the country as an Islamic Republic; and when the Supreme Court
overturned the ban on JI.
In his essay on the Ayub era, Dr S.H. Ansari, states that from 1965
onward, Ayubs regime began to change complexion. This undermined his
project of Muslim modernity which, had it continued, might just have
moulded a somewhat different future for the country.
Ansari gives three reasons for the projects rollback. First, to get reelected as president in 1965, Ayub allowed his information ministry to coopt certain ulema who asked to negatively highlight the gender of his
opponent, Fatima Jinnah. Secondly, after the 1965 war with India ended in
a stalemate, it negatively impacted the countrys economy. Ayub began to
lose popularity and increasingly began to use religious rhetoric.
Muslim modernists began to abandon him, while the countrys polity,
now suffering from a stressed economy, began moving left (PPP, National
Awami Party, Awami League); or right towards religious outfits. Thirdly, by
the time he resigned in early 1969, many of Ayubs desperate ministers had
begun mending fences with religious outfits (to negate leftist opponents).
But all this could not save Ayubs fall. A floundering economy and an
attempt to repackage and repaint his stumbling regime with more pious
colours only ended up providing his erstwhile opponents the space to make
a re-entry into mainstream politics.
This is also the same ploy Z.A. Bhutto would attempt during the tail end
of his populist regime in 1977, only to also fall and set the stage for the likes
of Zia and whatever followed his regime and legacy.
20 | P a g e
21 | P a g e