Pakistan has never gone through such a prolonged, intense and widespread political turmoil as at present. There were massive demonstrations by students and other sections of the urban population in 1952 in East Pakistan in protest against the Central Government’s misguided attempt to impose Urdu as the only national language. But the agitation subsided as soon as Bengali was recognised as the second national language. There was also a bitter anti-centre crusade in the province at the time of the first general election on the basis of adult franchise in 1954, when the Muslim League was trounced, but it did not last long. The people in the former North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan have continued to resist the drastic curtailment of their autonomy in one form or another all these years. But what we are now witnessing is altogether a different story.
The impact of the 1965 war on Pakistan’s political scene has already been discussed in these columns earlier. But three other factors – the growing unpopularity of the regime, the highly restrictive nature of the Constitution and the re-assertion of Bengali, Pathan and even Sindhi sub-nationalisms – have also contributed to the present upsurge. In the case of East Pakistan it is by no means certain that the use of the term “sub-nationalism” is adequate.
Corruption
President Ayub Khan has dominated Pakistan for over a decade and the desire for a change is understandable. His son, Mr. Gauhar Ayub, has accumulated a vast fortune and has indulged in various malpractices without let or hindrance. After the last presidential election, for example, he openly beat up and terrorised many people in Karachi who had dared to vote against his father. The Field Marshal has recently persuaded his son to sell his shares in Gandhara Industries and to give up the key office he held in the ruling Muslim League. But this cannot assuage public opinion because Mr. Gauhar Ayub’s highhandedness is regarded only as an extreme form of what has become general practice among the ruling circles. If it were not so, corruption in high places would not figure so prominently in Air Marshal Asghar Khan’s campaign.
Not many in this country know that the campaign against tax evasion, black-marketing, hoarding, smuggling and corruption under the Martial Law Administration in 1958 did not last more than a couple of months. This is not to suggest that by the turn of the year the situation was back to “normal”. The fear of dire punishment lasted for a year or so. But President Ayub Khan and his top advisers soon recognised that Pakistan had to give first priority to the creation of an entrepreneurial class and not to the fight against malpractices. The over-jealous colonels were soon sent back to their barracks and power was restored to the bureaucrats.
It is irrelevant for an outsider to judge whether or not the Pakistan Government was justified in allowing enormous profits to be made quickly in a truly robber baron tradition. But the policy produced two results which are now causing grave discontent – corruption in the administration and the concentration of wealth in a few hands belonging to a few communities.
Middle Class
In his book The Political System of Pakistan, Mr. Khalid Bin Sayeed writes: “In addition to the refugees there is the large group of people belonging to the middle class who are by and large antagonistic to the present regime. In the cities of West Pakistan they feel that the rewards of economic development are largely being monopolised by a few families belonging to certain exclusive business communities like the Memons, the Bohras, the Khojas and the Chinioties. In East Pakistan the middle class Bengalis feel that most of the industries are being run by entrepreneurs from West Pakistan.”
As for the Constitution, the best that can be said in its favour is that it can meet the demands of a stagnant society. It is modelled after the viceregal system as it worked in united India before the Government of India Act of 1935. Like the Viceroy, the Pakistan President is all-powerful and the legislatures both at the Centre and in the provinces play only an advisory role. There is hardly any curb on the powers of the military-bureaucratic elite. The fatal weakness of the system is that it seeks to deny the growing urban middle class intelligentsia the leadership role that its counterparts play in all developing societies, whether democratic or dictatorial.
President Ayub Khan is distrustful of the Western-educated intelligentsia and adopts a paternalistic attitude towards landlords and other vested interests in the countryside. The latter two groups have provided legitimacy to his regime and may stand by it in the coming election. But they cannot ensure political order and stability if the urban intelligentsia is and remains alienated. Modernisation and development inescapably involve a steady shift of power to urban centres.
The Pakistani intelligentsia was critical of the present Constitution even in 1962 when the memory of the sorry record of the politicians and the resulting political instability and confusion was still fresh. Its sense of frustration has increased as it has grown more self-confident and as the capacity of the regime to bribe it and browbeat it has declined because of its growing size. In that sense, the present upheaval represents a crisis of confidence in the system. It is not just a question of replacing Field Marshal Ayub Khan with Air Marshal Asghar Khan. The latter’s reputation may be unsullied but that is not enough. Pakistan needs a new political system which is in better accord with the aspirations of the growing intelligentsia than the present one.
Here is the rub. For, Pakistan is not ready for parliamentary democracy. It has not been able to throw up a party or parties which holds or hold the promise of providing the country with a viable government. The Muslim League lost its raison d’etre as soon as united India was partitioned. It did not strike root in Pakistan. The military-bureaucratic elite seized effective power even before Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination in 1950 because there was no political organisation which could hold it in check. Inevitably it developed and still retains a vested interest in preserving the status quo.
Pakistan has been caught in a vicious circle. Political parties cannot grow so long as the ruling elite is not prepared to loosen its tight control and it will be under no compulsion to do so unless the parties acquire a sufficiently high degree of popular support. It is hard to believe that Pakistan can break out of this vicious circle quickly or painlessly. The current unrest is only the beginning of what is bound to be a prolonged and painful process.
Sub-nations
It is more than likely, specially in the case of East Bengal and the Pathan and Baluchi areas, “that political parties will secure popular support only when they are able to reflect and espouse the aspirations of the sub-nations which constitute Pakistan. Since these separate entities have not yet merged to form what can meaningfully be called the Pakistan nation, they must seek and find political expression in asserting their individuality.
Twenty-one years after it came into existence, Pakistan remains what it was to begin with – a State in search of a nation. The Muslim League which brought it into existence was essentially a communal organisation of Muslims of what remains India. In spite of all its talk of Islamic ideology, it was never able to overcome the weaknesses of its origin. The speed with which it was swept aside in Pakistan speaks for itself.
Pakistan has all along been run as an empire largely in the interest of its Punjab constituent. The so-called Islamic ideology and the fear of India were supposed to transmute it into a nation. The miracle has not taken place. Whatever else the military-bureaucratic elite may be able to achieve, it cannot by its very nature weld the Pakistani peoples into one nation. Nation-building is a political process which cannot be completed through administrative fiats.
The politics of regionalism in respect of East Bengal has been discussed in terms of economic disparity and inadequate representation in the civil and defence services. The assumption has been that its aspirations will be met as its specific grievances are redressed. This assumption is open to question on two accounts.
First, it is virtually impossible to redress the grievances in question without transforming the country’s political and economic system beyond recognition. Secondly, the cultural and linguistic divergence between the two parts of Pakistan is too wide to be bridged by economic adjustments.
Two Wings
It is symptomatic of the present distrust between the two wings that the Awami League has demanded two separate currencies, two separate fiscal and monetary systems, exclusive authority to levy all taxes and duties for the federating units, two separate external trade accounts, and right for each unit to raise and maintain under its control paramilitary and territorial forces. The League wants to limit the powers of the Federal government to two subjects, namely defence and foreign affairs, and suggests that it should have no right to levy any tax or duty and that its expenditure should be met out of its share of the revenue of the two units. The demand for “autonomy” has thus already moved to a new level.
It is doubtful whether the Indian experience is relevant for Pakistan. The latter does not have, and does not hold out the promise of producing a party like the Congress which can reflect and reconcile regional and national aspirations and needs. Indian polity has never suffered from the kind of imbalances which pose a serious challenge to the ingenuity of Pakistani rulers. The Hindi-speaking states may have the advantage of numbers but that is about all. Pakistan has its Prussia in Punjab.
The Times of India, 29 January 1969