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Islamic Pakistan

ISLAMIC PAKISTAN: ILLUSIONS & REALITYBy Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Table Of ContentsPreface Introduction Chapter I Chapter II Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan Ulema and Pakistan Movement Chapter VII The Third Islamic Republic Chapter VIII The Third Martial Law Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI The Fourth Republic Nawaz Sharif's second stint in Office What is the true state of affairs?

Chapter III The First Islamic Republic Chapter IV The First Martial Law Chapter V Chapter VI The Second Martial Law What led to the break-up?

Chronology of Pakistan Select bibliography Links

Copyright: Ghazali Last updated: 14th August 1999 Library of U.S.Congress No. 97-930581 r98

For more Information:E-Mail us at: [email protected] or Write to us at the following addresses: P.O.Box 21810, Safat - Kuwait - 13079 P.O.Box 56505, Hayward - California - 94540 - USA Published in Pakistan by National Book Club, 66/1-D, F-6/1, Agha Khan Road,Islamabad.http://www.ghazali.net/book1/contents.htm (1 of 2) [10/14/2004 3:24:18 AM]

Islamic Pakistan

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GHAZALI'S HOMEPAGE *

On the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of Pakistan Abdus Sattar Ghazali Presents

ISLAMIC PAKISTAN: ILLUSIONS & REALITYA comprehensive and detailed political history of PakistanThe author is a professional journalist, with Master's degree in Political Science from the Punjab University. Started his journalistic career as a sub-editor in the daily Bang-e-Haram, Peshawar in 1960. Later worked in the daily Anjam and the Tourist weekly Peshawar. Served as a News Editor in the Daily News, Kuwait from 1969 to 1976. Joined the English News Department of Kuwait Television as a News Editor in December 1976. Also worked as the correspondent of the Associated Press of Pakistan and the Daily Dawn, Karachi, in Kuwait. At present working as the Editor-in-Chief of the Kuwait Television English News.

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Mailing addresses: P.O.Box 21810, Safat, Kuwait-13079 P.O.Box 56505, Hayward, CA 94540 Published in Pakistan by National Book Club, 66/1-D, F-6/1, Agha Khan Road - Islamabad

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PREFACEChapter 3 Interest in the idea of writing this book was first generated in April 1980 when I was conducting an opinion survey, for the daily "Arab Times", among the Pakistani expatriates in Kuwait on the political situation in Pakistan. The two part survey report contained an introductory article and reactions of the Pakistani expatriates about the prevalent situation in the country. When the first part of the opinion survey was published, the then Ambassador of Pakistan in Kuwait, Mr. Mehdi Masoud, expressed his deep displeasure to me and unsuccessfully tried to convince the Arab Times owner not to publish the second part of the report. He was particularly upset over these remarks in the article: "the law of necessity recognized and upheld by Pakistan's highest judicial body is an honorable protection for military adventure in civil government. It is the best time for the military leaders to prepare themselves for withdrawal from politics with honor and dignity. Public indifference to military intelligence in statecraft has reached a peak." The article concluded that "the masses do not care for this or that form of government. The vast majority needs a peaceful and respectable living. The time to feed them on religious sentiments has ended. The economic depression is the decisive factor for the success of a regime. The Pakistani nation by and large is praying for an end to its miseries and agonies and is looking forward to a campaign of their cause. It just requires a sincere attempt to steer this mood into earnest action for the welfare of the common weal." This observation is still relevant a fter 15 years. This book does not claim to be an exhaustive history of Pakistan. It concerns mainly with the role of the ruling elite -- a conglomerate of feudal "feudal "lords and civil-military-bureaucracy -- in maintaining the status quo in a bid to consolidate its grip on the power strings. In that context, the study examines the constitutional, political and economic developments. The study also examines the religious factor in the country's politics. Islam has been used as an important political factor since independence leading to strengthening of "obscurantism", weakening of secular lobby and fomenting sectarian polarization. The study should be both informative and provocative for the pointed comments that will be found throughout the book. Every effort has been made to define the essential theme and to analyze the significant events of the past five decades in a lucid and fast-moving manner. I hope that this book will provide the reader with some insight into the happenings in Pakistan over the last five decades and would help in forming an opinion of events as they unfurled in the future. If this narrative, besides adding to the knowledge of events, provides a better understanding of our follies and weaknesses, it would have served a useful purpose. As with all studies of this kind, I take full responsibility for its contents and any errors of fact or interpretation are inadvertent, but mine alone. Many thanks are due to several persons who have guided and encouraged me in the pursuit of this study. In expressing my gratitude and thanks for being able to produce this volume I am really indebted to Messrs Chaudhry Ahmad Khan and Anwar Beg and Zulfiqar Ahmed who went through the entire manuscript and suggested improvements in the text. I am also thankful to Mr. Raza Ali for making arrangement for the publication of this book in Pakistan. Last but not the least, I must express my feelings for the affectionate encouragement I received from my family -- my wife, Meraj, daughters, Atia and Nadia and son, Mohammad Arshad -- who showed a great tolerance even when I was using their time for this book.

Abdus Sattar GhazaliKuwait - May 1997 Last Upate - August 1999

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Islamic Pakistan

INTRODUCTIONThroughout the chequered political history of Pakistan two factors have remained decisive: Islam and the army, in collaboration with civilian bureaucracy and feudal aristocracy. The intact feudal structure and religious institutions all worked in tandem for common interests in retaining the status quo and still pose a threat to any real social transformation. The dubious ruling regimes and opposition movements trying to dislodge them, both exploited Islam to the utmost. Those in power, used "religious" sentiments of ignorant masses to maintain their power and those thirsting for power, exploited the same sentiments in an attempt to manoeuvre their way in. The hierarchical system established in Pakistan, which benefits from its close relations with its benefactor and guide, the super power, is based on two major well organized institutions of the establishment -- the civil and the military bureaucracy. Both are closely related and inter-connected in their ideological and political properties. Their major social base is the feudal and the post-feudal landlords class, although a strong admixture of the commercial and industrial bureaucracy has also become gradually a shareholder and partner in the spoils. One of the important ingredients to this mix of which the Pakistani establishment is composed comprises the religiously scholarly class, the mullah and the religio-politicial parties -- all veering in the direction of rightist, pro status quo causes. The cultural and social ideas on which the ideological structure of the state has been formed are provided by this group of religious element. But what is not clearly recognized is that both the civil and "military" bureaucracy and the affluent elite are intimately integrated with the ideological structure and political values promoted by the religious-cum-political elements. Hence, the process of the so-called Islamisation worked to the satisfaction of all privileged segments of the society, namely military, "bureaucracy", land owners and industrialists. The military elite found status quo continuation easy with Islamization as the economically deprived lower cadres of the army got solace in it, thanks to their traditional background. The civil bureaucracy [1] that has learnt the art of surviving in all sorts of governments found it safe and secure, since Islamization has not substantially altered the socio-political realities in Pakistan. The land-owning and business classes enjoyed enough protection in legitimization of unlimited private property. The nominal land reforms introduced during Ayub and Bhutto's era were reversed in the name of Islam. During the last five decades a small privileged minority -- feudal aristocracy strengthened by the induction of retired army officers and civilian bureaucrats -- reaped the benefits of economic gains in terms of better training and education, economic prosperity and political participation. The promised and actual economic gains never reached the deprived masses. The United Nations Development Program reports affirm this assertion and lead us to the painful revelation that Asia has marched forward on the road to economic progress, while Pakistan is lagging far behind. [2] The sacrosanct constitutional provisions and shameful political intrigues made effective political participation of the people impossible. The masses are effectively disenfranchised through illiteracy and the barriers erected by the supremacy of the English language, the elite classes face virtually no competition in the higher spheres of social, political and economic activity. Cliques or coteries, representing one vested interest or another, governed in the name of the people. A real sense of participation in the affairs of nation still did not percolate down to all levels of the people. The five elections held since 1985 have returned to the assemblies legislators committed to retain the feudaldominated political system in the name of democracy. Sworn political enemies share common ground against land, labor and taxation reforms; against devolution of power; against liberalization of laws and the independence of judiciary and distributive justice. The failure of the popular and mass movements led to a loss of faith in change and modernization. Consequently, the masses with a traditional background took a negative turn and in total dismay sought refuge in the religious sentiment. This was actually desired by the deliberate policies of the ruling elite.http://www.ghazali.net/book1/introduction.htm (1 of 2) [10/14/2004 3:29:53 AM]

Chapter 3

Islamic Pakistan

Almost two years after independence, aberrant and freakish turn and twists of the national politics ended with the real state power resting in the hands of senior civil servants and army generals. Political power and authority were no longer in the hands of politicians after the assassination of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in October 1951, as it had been snatched away by bureaucrats and generals. The Constituent Assembly" was dissolved in 1954, with the backing and blessing of the Army Commander-inChief, General Ayub Khan. The autocratic move was condoned by the judiciary under the doctrine of necessity. The political process started defaulting with the army-hatched conspiracy, popularly called the "Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case." The process came to a complete halt with the usurpation of power by General Ayub Khan in 1958. The hasty retreat of army to the barracks after the tragedy of 1971, when the military junta presided over the permanent severance of the most populous province of the country, proved to be a tactical maneuver. In July 1977, General Ziaul Haq again usurped power from an elected government. In 1989, Army Chief of Staff, General "Aslam Beg" himself intervened against the restoration of this process by stopping revival of the Junejo Assembly, dissolved illegally by his predecessor General Zia. [3] Then General Beg helped President Ghulam Ishaq Khan -- an ex-bureaucrat -- dissolve the succeeding Assembly in August 1990. President Ishaq Khan resorted to the same practice against the Nawaz Assembly till he was sent home by General Abdul Waheed_ along with Nawaz Sharif in July, 1993. Pakistan started with the ideal of a democratic state that promised the people material advancement and the realization of social justice as enjoined by Islam. What this meant was that the instruments of a liberal parliamentary system would be used to achieve egalitarian goals. No contradiction was admitted between political apparatus of a democratic state -- exercise of power by elected representatives, subject to limits laid down by them in the basic law -- and the objectives of the state. However, our civil as well as military rulers treated the constitutions as experimental devices. Finally, General Zia subverted the state's ideology [4] and as a result Pakistan acquired the ideology of a theocratic state. After nearly half a century of independence, Pakistan does not have the appearance of a country that was envisaged by the nation's creators, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Dr. Mohammad Iqbal. The Lahore Resolution of 1940, popularly known as Pakistan Resolution, makes no mention of a specific ideology for whatever was the future constitutional structure for the Moslems of the sub-continent. However, religion has come to be accepted as the ideology of today's Pakistan, with attempts to give Islamsomewhat tyrannical interpretations.

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Islamic Pakistan

Chapter I Jinnah's Vision of PakistanChapter 3

Page 1"In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims-Hindus, Christians and Parsis -- but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan." Quaid-i-Azam, Feb. 1948 [1] The founder of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah envisioned Pakistan as a modern democratic state to be run strictly on the basis of merit and where all citizens will be equal before the law. Jinnah's ideas about what the new state should be like were very clear as can be seen from his speeches and statements. He meant Pakistan to be a progressive state in which there would be scope neither for intolerance nor for obscurantism and whose highest aims would be expressed in the social, cultural and economic uplift of the masses. Before the establishment of Pakistan, the first public picture of Pakistan that Jinnah gave to the world was in the course of an interview in New Delhi (1946) with the correspondent of Reuter's news agency: the new state would be a modern democratic state, with sovereignty resting in the people and the members of the new nation having equal rights of citizenship, regardless of their religion, caste or creed. Only three days before Pakistan formally appeared on the world map, Jinnah, in his memorable speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan stated the principle on which the new state was to be founded said : " You may belong to any religion or caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the state ...... We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and citizens of one state....... in the course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state." This speech as President of the Constituent Assembly on 11th August 1947 is one of the clearest expositions of a secular state. Jinnah was the founder of Pakistan and the occasion on which he thus spoke was the first landmark in the history of Pakistan. The speech was intended both for his own people including non-Muslims, and for the world, and its object was to define as clearly as possible the ideal to the attainment of which the new state was to devote all its energies.[2] It is not without significance that the first Constituent Assembly inaugurated by the Quaid-i-Azam had as its temporary chairman a scheduled caste Hindu, Joginder Nath Mandal, before the Quaid himself was formally elected as its first chairman. The Quaid also appointed Mandal a member of his cabinet, which, as Chief Justice Mohammad Munir points out, was consistent, "with his conception of a secular state.[3] Even after his unambiguous proclamation of August 11, 1947, Jinnah did not leave anything to interpretation and took every opportunity to drive home his commitment to a secular Pakistan. Onehttp://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_1.htm (1 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:30:17 AM]

Islamic Pakistan

could go on quoting ad infinitum from his speeches and observations. On each occasion he insisted that Pakistan would be a modern democracy, with the hierarchy of mullahs and priests playing no role in the molding of its destiny. [4] Jinnah was basically a secular liberal who had studied British political history and practiced common law. For such a man the Muslim cause, which inescapably bound up with Islam, embraced nationalism and patriotism as well as the strict meaning of religion. He wanted to see Pakistan as an embodiment of dynamic and forward-looking Islam. Jinnah believed that Islam fosters, upholds and extols values such as freedom, equality, solidarity and social justice which may also be termed secular or humanistic; these, he repeatedly emphasized, constitute the bases of Pakistan's polity. In emphasizing the dynamic pursuit of these transient values of religion rather than its outward, static elements, Jinnah had placed himself in the mainstream of modernist approach that began with Shah Waliullah 1705-62), the first reformer in the sub-continent who broke away from the orthodoxy. [5] And his Pakistan becomes explicable only as an integral part of the deepening and hardening of the late 19th century reawakening of a political, social and religious nature into what might generally be termed as "Islamic sentiment" which can be recognized as being religious in so far as it draws its driving force inter alia from religion but which is directed mainly towards social and political ends.[6] We should not forget that the struggle for Pakistan was a secular campaign led by men of politics rather than religion. It was not the Ulema who began to organize for an independent Muslim state, but rather the most secularized classes. The background of the men who organized the campaign for Pakistan was not theology and Islamic law but politics and common law; not Deoband (the prominent seat of Islamic religious learning in India), but Cambridge and the Inns of Court. Jinnah and his lieutenants such as Liaqat Ali Khan won Pakistan in spite of the opposition by the so-called nationalist Ulema. A study of the Pakistan movement clearly indicates that "Islamic state" did not figure prominently during the period of struggle. An advocacy of Pakistan as an "Islamic state" sometimes brought Jinnah into confrontation with his colleagues. Raja Saheb of Mahmoudabad, in his memoirs recalls: "During 1941-5,.......we advocated that Pakistan should be an Islamic state. I must confess that I was very enthusiastic about it and in my speeches I constantly propagated my ideas. My advocacy of an Islamic state brought me into conflict with Jinnah. He thoroughly disapproved of my ideas and dissuaded me from expressing them publicly from the League platform lest the people might be led to believe that Jinnah share my view and that he was asking me to convey such ideas to public. As I was convinced that I was right and did not want to compromise Jinnah's position, I decided to cut myself away and for nearly two years kept my distance from him, apart from seeing him during the working committee meetings and other formal occasions.[7] The propelling slogan during the struggle for Pakistan was to establish a distinct identity of Muslims as a nation. Islam was used as a motivating force to rally the Muslims to the cause of Pakistan politically. But the state they aimed to create was to be secular, not a theocracy. And the method to achieve the goal was not a religious movement but political agitation. However, Islam's inherent drive towards a religio-political community was not the only factor at work in the hectic, complex days of the 1940's. The coming into existence of Pakistan was conditioned by the multitude of mundane matters, concrete and human, obtaining at that particular juncture of time and place. Political, economic, sociological, psychological and other factors in the independence movement and its environment were operative and important.[8] According to Jinnah, the demand and struggle for Pakistan had been ensured mainly because there was a danger of denial of basic rights to Moslems in the Indian sub-continent. "The story of Pakistan, its struggle and its achievement is the story of great human ideals struggling to survive in the face of odds and difficulties ...... I reiterate most emphatically that Pakistan was made possible because of the danger of complete annihilation of human soul in a society based on caste."[9]http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_1.htm (2 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:30:17 AM]

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While scanning through records of British India's history, one finds numerous instances, where a galaxy of Muslim political thinkers and intellectuals have professed that partition of the sub-continent into Hindu and Muslim majority regions was the only viable solution to safeguard the legitimate interests of the Muslims after the departure of the British rule. It was as early as in 1862 when Sir Syed Ahmad Khan for the first time realized that Hindus and Muslims of India could not live together peacefully as one nation. [10] This realization came to him when Hindus of Banares started an agitation demanding to replace Urdu by Hindi in Devnagri " script in all government offices and courts. Hindu priests further demanded that Muslims should be banned by the government from sacrificing cows and performing their religious rites near or inside the areas dominated by Hindus. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan saw the coming bitter split between the communities and immediately launched opposition to the idea of the creation of the Indian national Congress as the representative body of the whole country. He emphasized that the Indians did not form one nationality which was the basic requirement for making democracy successful in any country. He took the stand that the Hindus and Muslims being unequal in numerical strength and permanently divided on the basis of religion, the democratic form of government was unworkable in India because the larger party was bound to permanently hold the smaller one in its servility.[11] The call for a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia should have been a predictable outcome of the history of the region. The fact that the British appeared interested in leaving behind a unified political state, and the Indian National Congress was determined to maintain the geographic unity of the subcontinent in the face of the political and social realities of centuries of division and separatism, doesn't seem most surprising. [12] According to H.M. Seervai, Advocate General of Maharashtra, the partition became inevitable because Hindu leaders, including a leader as eminent as Jawaharlal Nehru failed to realize that by 1946 "the Muslim League dominated the Muslims as the Congress dominated the Hindus and that the Congress and the League would have to live and work together if India was to remain united. [13] In considering whether Jinnah and the League were responsible for the partition of India by raising the cry of Pakistan, it is necessary to ask, and answer, two questions: First, were the fears of the Muslim community that it would be permanently dominated by a "Hindu Raj" genuine? If so, was the community entitled to effective and not mere paper safeguards against such permanent domination? That the fears of the Muslim community were genuine is beyond dispute.[14] After the Congress committed the grave error of refusing to form Coalition Ministries in 1937, the first opportunity of avoiding partition was after the 1937 elections when Jinnah showed that he was not thinking of a separate state of Pakistan and made a public appeal to Gandhi to tackle the question of Hindu-Muslim unity. The second opportunity of avoiding partition was the 1945 Desai-Liaquat Ali Pact -- to form a temporary League-Congress coalition government -- which, had it been implemented with goodwill, might have broken the deadlock. The repudiation of Bhulabhbhai Desai by the Congress put an end to the hope of repairing the damage which had been done in 1937. One more opportunity remained. It was seized by Azad when he put his ideas before the Cabinet Mission, and succeeded in persuading the congress working committee to adopt his plan. The Cabinet Mission Plan remained substantially the same as Azad's. This opportunity of keeping India united was lost, firstly, because the Congress accepted the plan with a qualification which destroyed its value for the Muslim League; secondly, because of the failure of the mission and, later, of the British government to make their intention clear before damage had been done by allowing the Congress reservations about the Cabinet Mission Plan to remain outstanding for over five months.[15] The movement that ultimately resulted in the creation of Pakistan was comprised of diverse groups, both regionally and socially. Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League gave the various regionally based groups a convenient voice at the center of the Indian politics. [16] The landed magnates, who ruled over the Muslim majority provinces, backed Jinnah and Muslim League that was transformed into a massbased movement in the early 1940s. The idea of a Muslim nation gained ground, and Jinnah became the embodiment of that conception. The Pakistan movement became a national movement, on the basis of the two-nation theory that Jinnah propounded, affirming that Muslims of India were a separate nationhttp://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_1.htm (3 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:30:17 AM]

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from Hindus. Insofar as their politics entailed the establishment of their own state, their objective was the creation of a nation state and not a theocratic state. [17] Much can be written about the various factors which culminated in the formation of a separate homeland for Muslims in the sub- continent. However, the important issue here is to understand the ideas held by Jinnah and others when they called for a separate state for Muslims of India. It is important to note that Jinnah and his closest lieutenants were determined to build Pakistan into a constitutional democracy. To them there was no contradiction between the Islamic state and a polity governed according to modern democratic principles. Moslems tend to reason that what passes for democracy and hence constitutionalism is at the very heart of Islamic teachings. According to this body of opinion, fairness, justice, compassion and honesty are all tenets of Islam: therefore, Islam made it simpler not more difficult to build democratic structures. With this in mind Pakistan's Muslim League leaders sought to fit Islam into their contemporary constitutional design, not the reverse.[18] Jinnah's speeches are abound with references to the Islamic principles of social justice and fairplay, but he made it clear, on more than one occasion, that he was against theocracy. He had consistently opposed theocratic ideas and influences and never minced his words about his commitment to a secular state. "Make no mistake: Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it. Islam demands from us the tolerance of other creeds and we welcome in closest association with us all those who of whatever creed are themselves willing to play their part as true and loyal citizen of Pakistan"[19] On another occasion Jinnah said : "The great majority of us are Muslims. We follow the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). We are members of the brotherhood of Islam in which all are equal in right, dignity and self-respect. Consequently, we have a special and a very deep sense of unity. But make no mistake : Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it."[20]

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Chapter II Ulema and Pakistan MovementChapter 3

Page 1Muslim religious organisations of the sub-continent -- Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, Majlis-i- Ahrar- i-Islam and Jamat-i-Islami [1]-- were politically very active during the struggle for Pakistan but all of them opposed tooth and nail the creation of a separate homeland for the Muslims. The opposition of Jamiat and Ahrar was on the plea that Pakistan was essentially a territorial concept and thus alien to the philosophy of Islamic brotherhood, which was universal in character. Nationalism was an un-Islamic concept for them but at the same time they supported the CongressParty's idea of Indian nationalism which the Muslim political leadership considered as accepting perpetual domination of Hindu majority. Jamat-i-Islami reacted to the idea of Pakistan in a complex manner. It rejected both the nationalist Ulema's concept of nationalism as well as the Muslim League's demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims. The most noteworthy feature of the struggle for Pakistan is that its leadership came almost entirely from the Western-educated Muslim professionals. The Ulema remained, by and large, hostile to the idea of a Muslim national state. But during the mass contact campaign, which began around 1943, the Muslim League abandoned its quaint constitutionalist and legalist image in favor of Muslim populism which drew heavily on Islamic values. Wild promises were made of restoring the glory of Islam in the future Muslim state. As a consequence, many religious divines and some respected Ulema were won over.[2] The Muslim political leadership believed that the Ulema were not capable of giving a correct lead in politics to the Muslims because of their exclusively traditional education and complete ignorance of the complexities of modern life. It, therefore, pleaded that the Ulema should confine their sphere of activity to religion since they did not understand the nature of politics of the twentieth century. It was really unfortunate that the Ulema, in general and the Darul Ulum Deoband in particular, understood Islam primarily in a legal form. Their medieval conception of the Shariah remained unchanged, orthodox and traditional in toto and they accepted it as finished goods manufactured centuries ago by men like (Imam) Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf. Their scholasticism, couched in the old categories of thought, barred them from creative thinking and properly understanding the problems, social or philosophical, confronting the Muslim society in a post-feudal era. They were intellectually illequipped to comprehend the crisis Islam had to face in the twentieth century. [3] The struggle for Pakistan -- to establish a distinct identity of Muslims -- was virtually a secular campaign led by men of politics rather than religion and Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his lieutenants such as Liaquat Ali Khan who won Pakistan despite opposition by most of the Ulema. Jinnah was continuously harassed by the Ulema, particularly by those with Congress orientation. They stood for status quo as far as Islam and Muslims were concerned, and regarded new ideas such as the two nation theory, the concept of Muslim nationhood and the territorial specification of Islam through the establishment of Pakistan as innovations which they were not prepared to accept under any circumstance. It was in this background that Jinnah pointed out to the students of the Muslim University Union: "What the League has done is to set you free from the reactionary elements of Muslims and to create the opinion that those who play their selfish game are traitors. It has certainlyhttp://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_2.htm (1 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:30:50 AM]


freed you from that undesirable element of Molvis and Maulanas. I am not speaking of Molvis as a whole class. There are some of them who are as patriotic and sincere as any other, but there is a section of them which is undesirable. Having freed ourselves from the clutches of the British Government, the Congress, the reactionaries and so-called Molvis, may I appeal to the youth to emancipate our women. This is essential. I do not mean that we are to ape the evils of the West. What I mean is that they must share our life not only social but also political." [4] The history of the Ulema in the sub-continent has been one of their perpetual conflict with intelligentsia. The Ulema opposed Sir Syed Ahmad Khan when he tried to rally the Muslims in 1857. Nearly a hundred of them, including Maulana Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, the leading light of Deoband, ruled that it was unlawful to join the Patriotic Association founded by him. However, the Muslim community proved wiser than the religious elite and decided to follow the political lead given by Sir Syed Ahmad. The conflict between conservative Ulema and political Muslim leadership came to a head during the struggle for Pakistan when a number of Ulema openly opposed the Quaid-i-Azam and denounced the concept of Pakistan. It is an irony of history that Jinnah in his own days, like Sir Syed Ahmad before him, faced the opposition of the Ulema. The Ahrar Ulema -- Ataullah Shah Bukhari, Habibur Rahman Ludhianawi and Mazhar Ali Azhar -seldom mentioned the Quaid-i-Azam by his correct name which was always distorted. Mazhar Ali Azhar used the insulting sobriquet Kafir-i-Azam (the great unbeliever) for Quaid-i-Azam. One of the resolutions passed by the Working Committee of the Majlis-i-Ahrar which met in Delhi on 3rd March 1940, disapproved of Pakistan plan, and in some subsequent speeches of the Ahrar leaders Pakistan was dubbed as "palidistan". The authorship of the following couplet is attributed to Maulana Mazhar Ali Azhar, a leading personality of the Ahrar: Ik Kafira Ke Waste Islam ko Chhora Yeh Quaid-i-Azam hai Ke hai Kafir-i-Azam.[6] (He abandoned Islam for the sake of a non-believer woman [7], he is a great leader or a great nonbeliever) During the struggle for Pakistan, the Ahrar were flinging foul abuse on all the leading personalities of the Muslim League and accusing them of leading un-Islamic lives. Islam was with them a weapon which they could drop and pick up at pleasure to discomfit a political adversary. Religion was a private affair in their dealings with the Congress and nationalism their ideology. But when they were pitted against the Muslim League, their sole consideration was Islam. They said that the Muslim League was not only indifferent to Islam but an enemy of it. After independence, the Ahrar leaders came to Pakistan. But before coming, the All India Majlis-iAhrar passed a resolution dissolving their organization and advising the Muslims to accept Maulana Azad as their leader and join the Congress Party.[8] The Jamat-i-Islami was also opposed to the idea of Pakistan which it described as Na Pakistan (not pure). In none of the writings of the Jama'at is to be found the remotest reference in support of the demand for Pakistan. The pre-independence views of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of the Jamat-i-Islami were quite definite: "Among Indian Muslims today we find two kinds of nationalists: the Nationalists Muslims, namely those who in spite of their being Muslims believe in Indian Nationalism and worship it; and the Muslims Nationalist: namely those who are little concerned with Islam and its principles and aims, but are concerned with the individuality and the political and economic interests of that nation which has come to exist by the name of Muslim, and they are so concerned only because of their accidence of birth in that nation. From the Islamic viewpoint both these types of nationalists were equally misled, for Islam enjoins faith in truth only; it does not permit any kind of nation-worshipping at all.[9]http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_2.htm (2 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:30:50 AM]


Maulana Maududi was of the view that the form of government in the new Muslim state, if it ever came into existence, could only be secular. In a speech shortly before partition he said: "Why should we foolishly waste our time in expediting the so-called Muslim-nation state and fritter away our energies in setting it up, when we know that it will not only be useless for our purposes, but will rather prove an obstacle in our path." [10] Paradoxically, Maulana Maududi's writings played an important role in convincing the Muslim intelligentsia that the concept of united nationalism was suicidal for the Muslims but his reaction to the Pakistan movement was complex and contradictory. When asked to cooperate with the Muslim League he replied: "Please do not think that I do not want to participate in this work because of any differences, my difficulty is that I do not see how I can participate because partial remedies do not appeal to my mind and I have never been interested in patch work."[11] He had opposed the idea of united nationhood because he was convinced that the Muslims would be drawn away from Islam if they agreed to merge themselves in the Indian milieu. He was interested more in Islam than in Muslims: because Muslims were Muslims not because they belonged to a communal or a national entity but because they believed in Islam. The first priority, therefore, in his mind was that Muslim loyalty to Islam should be strengthened. This could be done only by a body of Muslims who did sincerely believe in Islam and did not pay only lip service to it. Hence he founded the Jamat-i-Islami (in August 1941).[12] However, Maulana Maududi's stand failed to take cognizance of the circumstances in which the Muslims were placed [13] at that critical moment. The Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind, the most prestigious organization of the Ulema, saw nothing Islamic in the idea of Pakistan. Its president, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, who was also Mohtamim or principal of Darul Ulum Deoband opposed the idea of two-nation theory, pleading that all Indians, Muslims or Hindus were one nation. He argued that faith was universal and could not be contained within national boundaries but that nationality was a matter of geography, and Muslims were obliged to be loyal to the nation of their birth along with their non-Muslim fellow citizens. Maulana Madani said: "all should endeavor jointly for such a democratic government in which Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Parsis are included. Such a freedom is in accordance with Islam." [14] He was of the view that in the present times, nations are formed on the basis of homeland and not on ethnicity and religion.[15] He issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from joining the Muslim League. Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani accepted the doctrine of Indian nationalism with all enthusiasm and started preaching it in mosques. This brought a sharp rebuke from Dr. Mohammad Iqbal. His poem on Hussain Ahmad [16] in 1938 started a heated controversy between the so-called nationalist Ulema and the adherents of pan-Islamism (Umma). Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a member of Indian National Congress regrets that he did not accept Congress president ship in 1946, which led Nehru to assume that office and give the statements that could be exploited by the Muslim League for creation of Pakistan and withdrawal of its acceptance of the Cabinet Plan that envisaged an Indian Union of all the provinces and states of the sub-continent with safeguards for minorities. [17] He had persuaded the pro-Congress Ulema that their interests would be better safeguarded under a united India, and that they should repose full confidence in Indian nationalism. However, they should make efforts to secure for themselves the control of Muslim personal law, by getting a guarantee from the Indian National Congress, that the Muslim personal law would be administered by qadis (judges) who were appointed from amongst the Ulema.[18] In a bid to weaken the Muslim League's claim to represent all Muslims of the subcontinent, the Congress strengthened its links with the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind, the Ahrars and such minor and insignificant non-League Muslim groups as the Momins and the Shia Conference.[19] Along with its refusal to share power with the Muslim League, the Congress pursued an anti-Muslim League policy in another direction with the help of Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind . It was not enough to keep the Muslim League out of power. Its power among the people should be weakened and finally broken.http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_2.htm (3 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:30:50 AM]


Therefore, it decided to bypass Muslim political leadership and launch a clever movement of contacting the Muslim masses directly to wean them away from the leadership that sought to protect them from the fate of becoming totally dependent on the sweet will of the Hindu majority for their rights, even for their continued existence. This strategy -- called Muslim Mass Contact Movement -- was organized in 1937 with great finesse by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. [20] Congress leaders .... employed Molvis to convert the Muslim masses to the Congress creed. The Molvis, having no voice in the molding of the Congress policy and program, naturally could not promise to solve the real difficulties of the masses, a promise which would have drawn the masses towards the Congress. The Molvis and others employed for the work tried to create a division among the Muslim masses by carrying on a most unworthy propaganda against the leaders of the Muslim League. [21] However, this Muslim mass contact movement failed. It is pertinent to note here that a small section of the Deoband School was against joining the Congress. Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (1863-1943) was the chief spokesman of this group. Later Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Othmani (1887-1949), a well-known disciple of Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani and a scholar of good repute, who had been for years in the forefront of the Jamiat leadership quit it with a few other Deoband Ulema, and became the first president of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam established in 1946 to counteract the activities of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind. However, the bulk of the Deoband Ulema kept on following the lead of Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani and the Jamiat in opposing the demand for Pakistan. Contrary to the plea of the nationalist Ulema, the Muslim intelligentsia was worried that the end of British domination should not become for the Muslims the beginning of Hindu domination. They perceived through the past experience that the Hindus could not be expected to live with them on equal terms within the same political framework. Therefore they did not seek to change masters. A homeland is an identity and surely the Muslims of the sub-continent could not have served the cause of universal brotherhood by losing their identity, which is what would have inevitably happened if they had been compelled to accept the political domination of the Hindus. The Ulema thought in terms of a glorious past and linked it unrealistically to a nebulous future of Muslim brotherhood. This more than anything else damaged the growth of Muslim nationalism and retarded the progress of Muslims in the subcontinent.[22] The nationalist Ulema failed to realize this simple truth and eventually found themselves completely isolated from the mainstream of the Muslim struggle for emancipation. Their opposition to Pakistan on grounds of territorial nationalism was the result of their failure to grasp contemporary realities. [23] They did not realize that majorities can be much more devastating, specifically when it is an ethnic, linguistic or religious majority which cannot be converted into a minority through any election.[24] The Ulema, as a class, concentrated on jurisprudence and traditional sciences. They developed a penchant for argument and hair splitting. This resulted in their progressive alienation from the people, who while paying them the respect due to religious scholars, rejected their lead in national affairs. While their influence on the religious minded masses remained considerable, their impact on public affairs shrank simply because the Ulema concentrated on the traditional studies and lost touch with the realities of contemporary life.[25]




Islamic Pakistan

Chapter III The First Islamic RepublicPage 1The role of Islam in politics was not at the center of Muslim politics during the struggle for Pakistan but was brought into the political debate after the nation was created. The issue proved to be the beginning of a decades long quest and debate over just what Pakistan's Islamic character should be. The Ulema identified their own political recognition with the Islamic constitution. Ulema did not wait long to demand their share of power in running the new state. Soon after independence, Jamat-i-Islami made the achievement of an Islamic constitution its central goal. Maulana Maududi, after the creation of Pakistan, revised the conception of his mission and that of the rationale of the Pakistan movement, [1] arguing that its sole object had been the establishment of an Islamic state and that his party alone possessed the understanding and commitment needed to bring that about. [2] Jamat-i-Islami soon evolved into a political party, demanding the establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan. It declared that Pakistan was a Muslim state and not an Islamic state since a Muslim State is any state which is ruled by Muslims while an Islamic State is one which opts to conduct its affairs in accordance with the revealed guidance of Islam and accepts the sovereignty of Allah and the supremacy of His Law, and which devotes its resources to achieve this end. [3] According to this definition, Pakistan was a Muslim state ruled by secular minded Muslims. Hence the Jamat-i-Islami and other religious leaders channeled their efforts to make Pakistan an "Islamic State." Maulana Maududi argued that from the beginning of the struggle for Pakistan, Moslems had an understanding that the center of their aspirations, Pakistan, would be an Islamic state, in which Islamic law would be enforced and Islamic culture would be revived. Muslim League leaders, in their speeches, were giving this impression. Above all, Quaid-i-Azam himself assured the Muslims that the constitution of Pakistan would be based on the Quran. [4] This contrasts to his views about the Muslim League leaders before independence: Not a single leader of the Muslim League, from Quad-i-Azam, downwards, has Islamic mentality and Islamic thinking or they see the things from Islamic point of view. [5] To declare such people legible for Muslim leadership, because they are expert in western politics or western organization system and have concern for the nation, is definitely ignorance from Islam and amounts to an un-Islamic mentality. [6] On another occasion, Maulana Maududi said it was not clear either from any resolution of the Muslim League or from the speeches of any responsible League leaders, that the ultimate aim of Pakistan is the establishment of an Islamic government.....Those people are wrong who think that if the Muslim majority regions are emancipated from the Hindu domination and a democratic system is established, it would be a government of God. As a matter of fact, in this way, whatever would be achieved, it would be only a non-believers government of the Muslims or may be more deplorable than that. [7] When the question of constitution-making came to the forefront, the Ulema, inside and outside the Constitutional Assembly and outside demanded that the Islamic Shariah shall form the only source for all legislature in Pakistan.http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_3.htm (1 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:31:11 AM]

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In February 1948, Maulana Maududi, while addressing the Law College, Lahore, [8] demanded that the Constitutional Assembly should unequivocally declare:q

q q

q

1. That the sovereignty of the state of Pakistan vests in God Almighty and that the government of Pakistan shall be only an agent to execute the Sovereign's Will. 2. That the Islamic Shariah shall form the inviolable basic code for all legislation in Pakistan. 3. That all existing or future legislation which may contravene, whether in letter or in spirit, the Islamic Shariah shall be null and void and be considered ultra vires of the constitution; and 4. That the powers of the government of Pakistan shall be derived from, circumscribed by and exercised within the limits of the Islamic Shariah alone.

On January 13, 1948, Jamiat-al-Ulema-i-Islam, led by Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, passed a resolution in Karachi demanding that the government appoint a leading Alim to the office of Shaikh al Islam, with appropriate ministerial and executive powers over the qadis throughout the country. [9] The Jamiat submitted a complete table of a ministry of religious affairs with names suggested for each post. It was proposed that this ministry be immune to ordinary changes of government. It is well known that Quaid-i-Azam was the head of state at this time and that no action was taken on Ulema's demand. [10] On February 9, 1948, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, addressing the Ulema-i-Islam conference in Dacca, demanded that the Constituent Assembly "should set up a committee consisting of eminent ulema and thinkers... to prepare a draft ... and present it to the Assembly.[11] It was in this background that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, on March 7, 1949, moved the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly, according to which the future constitution of Pakistan was to be based on " the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam." While moving the Resolution, he said: "Sir, I consider this to be a most important occasion in the life of this country, next in importance only to the achievement of independence, because by achieving independence we only won an opportunity of building up a country and its polity in accordance with our ideals. I would like to remind the house that the Father of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam, gave expression of his feelings on this matter on many an occasion, and his views were endorsed by the nation in unmistakable terms, Pakistan was founded because the Muslims of this sub-continent wanted to build up their lives in accordance with the teachings and traditions of Islam, because they wanted to demonstrate to the world that Islam provides a panacea to the many diseases which have crept into the life of humanity today."[12] The resolution was debated for five days. The leading members of the government and a large number of non-Muslim members, especially from East Bengal, took a prominent part. Non-Muslim members expressed grave apprehensions about their position and role in the new policy. Hindu members of the Constitutional Assembly argued that the Objectives Resolution differed with Jinnah's view in all the basic points. Sris Chandra Chattopadhyaya said: "What I hear in this (Objectives) Resolution is not the voice of the great creator of Pakistan - the Quaid-i-Azam, nor even that of the Prime Minister of Pakistan the Honorable Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, but of the Ulema of the land." [13] Birat Chandra Mandal declared that Jinnah had "unequivocally said that Pakistan will be a secular state." [14] Bhupendra Kumar Datta went a step further: ...were this resolution to come before this house within the life-time of the Great Creator of Pakistan, the Quaid-i-Azam, it would not have come in its present shape...." [15] The leading members of the government in their speeches not only reassured the non-Muslims that their position was quite safe and their rights were not being impaired but also gave clarifications with regard to the import of the Resolution. Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, the Deputy Leader of the House, while defending the Resolution said: "It was remarked by some honorable members that the interpretation which the mover of this Resolution has given is satisfactory and quite good, but Mr. B.C. Mandal says: "Well tomorrow you may die, I may die, and the posterity may misinterpret it." First ofhttp://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_3.htm (2 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:31:11 AM]

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all, I may tell him and those who have got some wrong notions about the interpretation of this resolution that this resolution itself is not a constitution. It is a direction to the committee that will have to prepare the draft keeping in view these main features. The matter will again come to the House in a concrete form, and all of us will get an opportunity to discuss it." [16] In his elucidation of the implications of the Objectives Resolution in terms of the distribution of power between God and the people, Omar Hayat Malik argued: "The principles of Islam and the laws of Islam as laid down in the Quran are binding on the State. The people or the state cannot change these principles or these laws...but there is a vast field besides these principles and laws in which people will have free play...it might be called by the name of 'theo-cracy', that is democracy limited by word of God, but as the word 'theo' is not in vogue so we call it by the name of Islamic democracy. [17] Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi further elaborated the concept of Islamic democracy: Since Islam admits of no priest craft, and since the dictionary meaning of the term "secular" is non-monastic -- that is, "anything which is not dependent upon the sweet will of the priests," Islamic democracy, far from being theocracy, could in a sense be characterized as being "secular." [18] However, he believed that if the word "secular" means that the ideals of Islam, that the fundamental principles of religion, that the ethical outlook which religion inculcates in our people should not be observed, then, I am afraid,...that kind of secular democracy can never be acceptable to us in Pakistan.[19] During the heated debate, Liaquat Ali Khan stressed: the Muslim League has only fulfilled half of its mission (and that) the other half of its mission is to convert Pakistan into a laboratory where we could experiment upon the principles of Islam to enable us to make a contribution to the peace and progress of mankind.[20] He was hopeful that even if the body of the constitution had to be mounted in the chassis of Islam, the vehicle would go in the direction he had already chosen. Thus he seemed quite sure that Islam was on the side of democracy. "As a matter of fact it has been recognized by non-Muslims throughout the world that Islam is the only society where there is real democracy." [21] In this approach he was supported by Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani: " The Islamic state is the first political institution in the world which stood against imperialism, enunciated the principle of referendum and installed a Caliph (head of State) elected by the people in place of the king." [22] The opposite conclusion, however, was reached by the authors of the Munir Report (1954) [23] who said that the form of government in Pakistan cannot be described as democratic, if that clause of the Objectives Resolution reads as follows: " Whereas sovereignty over the entire Universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone, and the authority which He has delegated to the state of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust." Popular sovereignty, in the sense that the majority of the people has the right to shape the nation's institutions and policy in accordance with their personal views without regard to any higher law, cannot exist in an Islamic state, they added. The learned authors of the Munir Report felt that the Objectives Resolution was against the concept of a sovereign nation state. Corroboration of this viewpoint came from the Ulema themselves, (whom the Munir Committee interviewed) "including the Ahrar" and erstwhile Congressites with whom before the partition this conception of a modern national state as against an Islamic state was almost a part of their faith. [24] The Ulema claimed that the Quaid-i-Azam's conception of a modern national state....became obsolete with the passing of the Objectives Resolution on 12th March 1949. [25] Justice Mohammad Munir, who chaired the committee, says that "if during Quaid-i-Azam's life, Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister had even attempted to introduce the Objectives resolution of the kind that he got through the Assembly, the Quaid-i-Azam would never have given his assent to it.[26] In an obvious attempt to correct the erroneous notion that the Objectives Resolution envisaged a theocratic state in Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan repeatedly returned to the subject during his tour of the United States (May-June 1950). In a series of persuasive and eloquent speeches, he argued that "We have pledged that the State shall exercise its power and authority through the chosen representatives of the people. In this we have kept steadily before us the principles of democracy, freedom equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam. There is no room here for theocracy, for Islamhttp://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_3.htm (3 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:31:11 AM]

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stands for freedom of conscience, condemns coercion, has no priesthood and abhors the caste system. It believes in equality of all men and in the right of each individual to enjoy the fruit of his or her efforts, enterprise, capacity and skill -- provided these be honestly employed." [27] The Objectives Resolution was approved on March 12, 1949. Its only Muslim critic was Mian Iftikharud-din, leader of the Azad Pakistan Party, although he believed that "the Islamic conception of a state is, perhaps as progressive, as revolutionary, as democratic and as dynamic as that of any other state or ideology." [28] According to Munir, the terms of the Objectives Resolution differ in all the basic points of the Quaid-iAzam's views e.g: [29]q

q

q

q

1. The Quaid-i-Azam has said that in the new state sovereignty would rest with the people. The Resolution starts with the statement that sovereignty rests with Allah. This concept negates the basic idea of modern democracy that there are no limits on the legislative power of a representative assembly. 2. There is a reference to the protection of the minorities of their right to worship and practice their religion, whereas the Quaid-i-Azam had stated that there would be no minorities on the basis of religion. 3. The distinction between religious majorities and minorities takes away from the minority, the right of equality, which again is a basic idea of modern democracy. 4. The provision relating to Muslims being enabled to lead their life according to Islam is opposed to the conception of a secular state.

It was natural that with the terms of the Resolution, the Ulema should acquire considerable influence in the state. On the strength of the Objectives Resolution they made the Ahmadis as their first target and demanded them to be declared a minority.[30] After the adoption of Objectives Resolution, Liaquat Ali Khan moved a motion for the appointment of a Basic Principles Committee consisting of 24 members, including himself and two non-Muslim members, to report the house on the main principles on which the constitution of Pakistan is to be framed. A Board of Islamic Teaching was set up to advise the Committee on the Islamic aspects of the constitution. In the course of constitutional debates, a number of very crucial issues were raised that caused much controversy, both inside and outside the Constituent Assembly over specific questions such as the following: 1) The nature of the Islamic state: the manner in which the basic principles of Islam concerning state, economy, and society were to be incorporated into the constitution.q

q

q

q

2) The nature of federalism: questions of provincial autonomy vis-a-vis federal authority with emphasis on the problems of representation on the basis of population and the equality of the federating units; the structure of the federal legislature -- unicameral or bicameral. 3) The form of government: whether it was to be modeled on the British or the U.S. pattern -parliamentary or presidential. 4) The problem of the electorate: serious questions of joint (all confessional groups vote in one election) versus separate (each confessional group votes separately for its own candidates) electorate. 5) The question of languageboth national and regional. These very fundamental issues divided the political elites of Pakistan into warring factions that impeded the process of constitutionmaking.


Islamic Pakistan


Islamic Pakistan

Chapter IV The First Martial LawChapter 3

Page 1On October, 7, 1958, President Iskandar Mirza staged a coup d'tat. He abrogated the 1956 constitution, imposed martial law and appointed General Mohammad Ayub Khan as the Chief Martial Law Administrator and Aziz Ahmad as Secretary General and Deputy Chief Martial Law Administrator. Aziz was the first civilian to hold such an office that made the civil servants partners in the coup d'tat. However, only three weeks later General Ayub -- who was openly questioning the authority of the government prior to the imposition of martial law [1] -- deposed Iskandar Mirza on Oct. 27, 1958 and assumed the presidency that practically formalized the militarization of the political system in Pakistan. After three and half years of martial law rule, President Ayub Khan introduced his constitution in May 1962 to reinforce his authority in the absence of martial law. The new constitution, in its much watered down formulations, recognized Islamic principles, a presidential form of government which lacked the necessary checks and balances and a federal structure which formally provided for a maximum degree of provincial autonomy in the legislative sphere. The federal structure was offset by the unitary character of organization of the executive authority insofar as the President was to appoint provincial governors who would, in turn, form the provincial cabinets without being responsible to the provincial legislatures. The provincial governments, consequently, would be directly responsible to the president of Pakistan. There were no fundamental rights but were added later through a constitutional amendment. The Ayub's system was neither presidential nor federal, nor representative either in form or in substance. In fact, what it did was to provide for an authoritarian political system which could be geared to the process of economic development and militarization of the political system in the wake of Pakistan's military alliances with the West within the framework of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO). The word "Islamic" was omitted from the name of the state in the new constitution. [A martial law ordinance had earlier declared that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will be known as Pakistan.] There was reference in the directive principles to Quran and Sunnah and the Islamic way of life but the responsibility of giving effect to laws made in pursuance of such principles was that of the organ of the state and nobody could question the organ's discretion. There was to be an Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology but it consisted of lawyers and administrators and the Ulemaof liberal views, one of them being the blind Hashim from East Pakistan who was quite modern in his views. He also set up Islamic Research Institute of which Fazal-ur-Rehman, a modernist, was the President. [2] However, the conservative element in the indirectly-elected National Assembly began to clamor for restoration of the Islamic features of the 1956 constitution. Ayub could not resist the demand and they had to be restored in 1963 through constitutional amendments. The provision in the new constitution that no law should be repugnant to Islam was not enforceable in a court of law, while article 198 of the 1956 constitution dealing with the same subject was enforceable in a law court. There was no provision in the new constitution to bring the legal code of the country in conformity with the laws of Islam. It was, however, ensured through the first amendment that "all existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the Holy Quran and Sunnah." Further, while in thehttp://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_4.htm (1 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:31:50 AM]

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original constitution of 1962 it was simply provided that "no law shall be repugnant to Islam," it was elaborated with the additional words: "No law shall be repugnant to the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and Sunnah." The amendment restored the footnote of Article 198 of the 1956 constitution stating that the expression Quran and Sunnah shall mean the Quran and Sunnah as interpreted by the sect concerned. Like 1956 constitution Ayub Khan's constitution did not make Islam the State religion of Pakistan. Ayub Khan was against using Islam as a clich in politics but at the same time he was well aware of the dangers of abandoning Islam as a state policy. In his autobiography Friends Not Masters, while discussing the role of religion in Pakistan's politics, he said: "Any attempt at interpreting the tenets of Islam and adapting the laws to conform to the requirements of the time is a signal for the Ulema to raise the slogan of heresy."[3] However, like the former Law Minister, A.K.Brohi [4] Ayub believed that the Quran does not present a constitution for an Islamic state. He said: "The Holy Quran contained the principles of guidance but did not prescribe a detailed constitution for running a country. The example of the Holy Prophet in organizing an Islamic State was, of course, available. After the Holy Prophet, the four caliphs organized and administered the State according to their understanding of Islamic principles. Each one of them had applied the principles of Islam and the teachings of the Holy Prophet in accordance with their circumstances. No specific pattern of government or even of the election of the Head of Government had been established. The conclusion was inescapable that Islam had not prescribed any particular pattern of government but had left it to the community to evolve its own pattern to suit its circumstances, provided that the principles of the Quran and the Sunnah were observed."[5] Arguing that the burden of thinking about the interpretation of the Islamic principles must rest on the community, Ayub Khan says: " In all this, I was guided by my understanding of the institution of ijma (consensus) provided in Islam. According to one school of thought ijma represents the agreement, in a matter requiring opinion or decision, of the mujthahids, people who, by virtue of their knowledge of Islam, have a right to form their own judgment. Another school of thought interprets ijma to form as the opinion of the majority of all Muslims. There is yet another view that the right to formulate independent judgment on matters affecting the life of the people rests in the Legislative and not in any body of scholars."[6] In this view Ayub Khan was probably influenced by Dr Mohammad Iqbal who argues: "The growth of republican spirit, and the gradual formation of legislative assemblies in Muslim lands constitutes a great step in advance. The transfer of the power of ijtehad from individual representatives of school to a Muslim legislative assembly which, in view of growth of opposing sects, is the only possible form ijma can take in modern times."[7] Iqbal also holds that on a question of legal interpretation, even the unanimous decision of the Companions of the Prophet would not inescapably bind later generations.[8] Continuing his argument on ijma, Ayub Khan writes: " I did not want to prejudge the issue and therefore in the constitutional arrangement I left it to the representatives of the people to decide how they would like to form their judgment in matters relating to the Quran and the Sunnah. I thought it necessary to provide an Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology backed by an Islamic Research Institute to assist the Legislature in framing laws based on the concepts of Islam. The Council was to have as members not only those persons who possessed a knowledge of Islam but also those who understood the economic, political, legal and administrative problems of the country so that the requirements of Islam and the requirements of the time and circumstances could be harmonized."[9] Realizing that Ulema would not be satisfied with this arrangement, he said: "They claimed the exclusive right to interpret and decide matters pertaining to Islam. While they maintained this claim they refrained from producing any detailed constitutional document, knowing that such an attempt would only expose their internal differences. Their demand was that the government should agree to adopt an Islamic Constitution, leaving it to the Ulema to decide whether any law or measure was Islamic or not."[10]http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_4.htm (2 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:31:50 AM]

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Elaborating on Ulema's demand for an Islamic Constitution, Ayub Khan went on to say: Since no one had defined the fundamental elements of an Islamic Constitution, no constitution could be called Islamic unless it received the blessings of all Ulema. The only way of having an Islamic Constitution was to hand over the country to the Ulema and beseech them, 'lead kindly light.' This is precisely what the Ulema wanted. A constitution could be regarded as Islamic only if it were drafted by the Ulema and conceded them the authority to judge and govern the people. This was a position which neither the people nor I was prepared to accept."[11] Ayub Khan's liberal interpretation of Islam reflected in his constitution. The Constitution Commission appointed by him in 1960 recommended that "we should set up an International Muslim Commission to advise us as to how our laws could be made to conform to the injunctions of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah. I doubted whether a Commission of this kind would serve any useful purpose. I sounded some Heads of State at the time but they showed no enthusiasm for the idea. It was obvious that we would have to address ourselves to our problems and work out our own solutions." [12] The Constitution Commission also pointed out that "the bringing of the laws into conformity with the Quran and Sunnah does not by itself make a good Muslim."[13] Ayub Khan's skepticism about the role of Ulema in politics culminated in outlawing the most organized and vocal religious group in the country, Jamat-i-Islami, in 1963. His government saw the activities of this religious party incompatible with the security of the state. All the government servants and military personnel were asked to file an affidavit declaring that they do not belong to Jamat-i-Islami. Before the promulgation of the constitution, Ayub Khan introduced the Muslim Family Laws through an Ordinance on March 2, 1961 under which unmitigated polygamy was abolished, consent of the current wife was made mandatory for a second marriage, brakes were placed on the practice of instant divorce where men pronounced it irrevocably by pronouncing talaq thrice in one go. The Arbitration Councils set up under the law in the urban and rural areas were to deal with cases of (a) grant of sanction to a person to contract a second marriage during the subsistence of a marriage; (b) reconciliation of a dispute between a husband and a wife; (c) grant maintenance to the wife and children. All Muslim marriages were to be compulsorily registered with registrars to be appointed by union councils, one in each ward. The registrars were also empowered to perform marriages. For such services they were to be paid substantial fees. The offices of registrars were filled by Imams and Khatibs. A sum of Rs. 5 crore annually went into the pockets of these religious leaders as a result of the fees prescribed by the ordinance. When Jamat-i-Islami launched an agitation against this "un-Islamic" Law, religious leaders either supported the President or kept aloof from the movement.[14] President Ayub promulgated the West Pakistan Waqf Properties Ordinance, 1961 on October 23, 1961 under which the government took over huge and valuable properties of Muslim trusts. Enormous funds recovered from the Waqf properties, which previously went into private pockets, were now at the disposal of the government. Some of these funds were spent on the salaries of the Imams and Khatibs of important mosques. The President was able thus to get further support from these religious leaders who were already indebted to him for being provided with jobs under the Family Laws Ordinance, 1961.[15] Ayub Khan's liberal interpretation of the Islamic principles antagonized Ulema who opposed his Family Law Ordinance to regulate Islamic personal law in a modern Islamic society. His attempts to popularize the family planning program was declared un-Islamic by orthodox mullahs who quoted verses from the Holy Quran to plead that the use of contraceptives was prohibited in Islam. Although the 1968-69 political agitation against Ayub's regime was mainly directed against the system of indirect elections, but during the demonstrations, the conservative section of population was easily aroused to turn against Ayub Khan to protest his "anti-Islamic" policies. During Ayub Khan's talks with the political leaders on 10th March, 1969, in Rawalpindi, leader of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan, Mufti Mahmood, objected to the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance and demanded that the 22 points agreed by Ulema in 1951 should be implemented in order to make Pakistan a true Islamic state.http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_4.htm (3 of 5) [10/14/2004 3:31:50 AM]

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Despite Ulema's vehement opposition to the Family Laws Ordinance, the role of Islam in politics remained eclipsed during the Ayub era. However, in 1967, he faced the wrath of Ulema on two other religious issues. The first was a controversy over the sighting of the crescent of Shawwal when the religious leaders gave public-heeded fatwas against celebrating Eid-al-Fitr according to the decision of the government-sponsored central moon-sighting committee. The religious leaders claimed that the people of Pakistan follow them on religious issues and do not have any confidence in the government in this sphere. Another issue was the book "Islam" written by Dr. Fazal-ur-Rehman, the Chairman of the Islamic Research Institute.There was a mass protest by the Ulema against the book. The author was forced to resign his job as Ayub's government decided to avoid confrontation with the religious lobby. The campaign against the liberal interpretation of Islam by Dr. Fazal [16] was seen as the second mass agitation the country had witnessed after the 1953 anti-Qadiani movement.


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Chapter V The Second Martial LawChapter 3

The second martial law was imposed on March 25, 1969, when President Ayub Khan abrogated his own constitution and handed over power to the Army Commander-in-Chief, General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan. [1] On assuming the presidency, General Yahya Khan acceded to popular demands by abolishing the one-unit system in West Pakistan [2] and ordered general elections on the principle of one man one vote. General Yahya's regime made no attempt to frame a constitution. The expectations were that a new constituent assembly would be set up by holding a free and fair election. In order to hold the proposed elections, President Yahya Khan promulgated a Legal Framework Order on March 30, 1970 that also spelled out the fundamental principles of the proposed constitution and the structure and composition of the national and provincial assemblies. In December, 1970 elections were held simultaneously for both the national and five provincial assemblies. By any criteria, elections were free and fair. There was no interference from the government; it maintained strict neutrality showing no favor or discrimination for or against any political parties. The members of the ruling council of ministers were debarred from participation in the elections. There were no allegations of rigging of the elections as is often alleged in elections held in the countries of the third world. But the results of the first and the last general elections in united Pakistan were simply disastrous from the standpoint of national unity and demonstrated the failure of national integration. There was not a single national party in the country which enjoyed the confidence of the people of Pakistan, both East and West Pakistan. Two regional parties -- the Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)-- won 160 out of 162 seats allotted for East Pakistan. But in West Pakistan it could not secure a single seat and the percentage of votes secured by the Awami League in the four provinces of West Pakistan were: 0.07 (Punjab), 0.07 (Sindh) 0.2 (NWFP) and 1.0 (Baluchistan). The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) under the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto won 81 out of 138 seats for West Pakistan. But the PPP did not even dare to set up a candidate in East Pakistan. The remaining 57 seats of West Pakistan were shared by seven parties and there were fifteen independent candidates. The PPP emerged as the single largest party in West Pakistan with majorities in Sindh and the Punjab; and the National Awami Party together with their political ally, Jamiat-ul Ulema-i-Islam, JUI, (of Maulana Mufti Mahmood got clear majorities in Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province. None of the West Pakistani political parties, like the PPP, could win a single seat in East Pakistan. The religious question played little or no part in the elections. There can be no doubt that in East Pakistan the principles which won the consensus of opinion was the single basic notion of autonomy. The Awami League (AL) had fought the elections on the basis of their six points formula, which committed them to restructure the existing federal system in order to ensure maximum political autonomy for East Pakistan. Under this formula, only two portfolios -- Foreign Affairs and Defence -would be retained by the central government. The PPP, on the other hand, was not willing to dilute the authority of the central government in-spite of assuring full provincial autonomy for all the provinces of Pakistan. The NAP and JUI coalition sided with the Awami League so that they might obtain maximum autonomy for their own provinces, i.e., Baluchistan and the NWFP.http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_5.htm (1 of 4) [10/14/2004 3:32:43 AM]

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The election results truly reflected the ugly political reality: the division of the Pakistani electorate along regional lines and political polarization of the country between the two wings, East and West Pakistan. In political terms, therefore, Pakistan as a nation stood divided as a result of the very first general elections in twenty-three years of its existence. Thus the general elections of 1970 produced a new political configuration with three distinct centers of power:(i) the AL in East Pakistan: (ii) the PPP in Sindh and the Punjab; and (iii) the NAP-JUI in Baluchistan and the NWFP. At the top of all this was the fourth center of power, the armed forces with their spokesman, Yahya Khan. There were two major claimants of power: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Both were inordinately ambitious and unscrupulous politicians. "Both flourished on negative appeals to the illiterate voters of Pakistan, one by whipping up regional feeling against Punjabi domination and the other by whipping up militant national feelings against India. Neither had any constructive or positive approach." [3] Mujib was apparently more interested in creating a separate state for Bengalis, Bangladesh since he had no trust in the ruling elite of West Pakistan. He also seemed to have entered into a secret deal with India for the secession of East Pakistan. India, thanks to its consistently and persistently hostile attitude towards Pakistan, was gladly ready to help Mujib in his secession plan.[4] On the other hand, Bhutto was more interested in getting power, no matter whether in a united or divided Pakistan. In fact he realized that in a united Pakistan, he had little chance of becoming either prime minister or president. According to GW Choudhury, "he realized from his discussions with Bhutto before and after the 1970 elections that if he had to make a choice between the two 'Ps (power or Pakistan), he would choose the former. He was more interested in getting a 21-gun salute as the head of the state than in the maintenance of the unity of Pakistan." [5] Negotiations were held between January and March 1971 between the two major regional leaders Mujib and Bhutto - and the ruling military government under President Yahya Khan. But the tripartite negotiations for an agreed federal or even a confederal constitution was a dismal and total failure. It is now a well-known fact that the negotiations in Dacca with Mujib were a smoke screen for gaining time for Yahya Khan to airlift supplies and military personnel to Dacca for subsequent military operations. [6] Under the Legal Framework Order, the President was to decide when the Assembly was to meet. Once assembled it was to frame a new constitution within 120 days or stand dissolved. On 13th February, 1971, the president announced that the National assembly was to meet at Dacca on 3rd march. By this time the differences between the main parties to the conflict had already crystallized. On December 22, 1970 the Secretary of the Awami League, Tajuddin Ahmed, claimed that his party having won an absolute majority had a clear mandate and was quiet competent to frame a constitution and to form a central government on its own. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman declared on January 3, 1971 that his party would not frame a constitution on its own, even though it had a majority. He refused, however, to negotiate on the Six Points, saying that they were now public property and no longer negotiable. The crux of the conflict was that the majority party in the west, led by Bhutto, was convinced that a Federation based on the Six Points would lead to a feeble confederation in name only. At best it would lead to a feeble confederation and at worst it would result in the division of the country into two states. These fears were evidently shared by the military leaders in the west, including President Yahya Khan who had publicly described Sheikh Mujibur Rehman as the 'future Prime Minister of Pakistan' on January 14, 1971. Bhutto announced on February 15 that his party would not attend the National Assembly unless there was 'some amount of reciprocity' from the Awami League. Sheikh Mujib replied at a press conference on February 21, asserting that 'Our stand is absolutely clear. The constitution will be framed on the basis of the Six Points'. He also denied that the Six Points would leave the central government at the mercy of the provinces and contended that they were designed only to safeguard provincial autonomy.http://www.ghazali.net/book1/chapter_5.htm (2 of 4) [10/14/2004 3:32:43 AM]

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On February 28, Bhutto demanded that either the 120-day limit for the national Assembly be removed or the opening session be postponed, declaring that if it was held on March 3 as planned, there would be a general strike throughout West Pakistan. President Yahya Khan responded next day by postponing the Assembly meeting to March 25. The postponement of the National Assembly came as a shattering disillusionment to the Awami League and their supporters throughout East Pakistan. It was seen as a betrayal and as proof of the authorities of the West Pakistan to deny them the fruits of their electoral victory. This resulted in the outbreak of violence in East Pakistan. The Awami Leaguelaunched a noncooperation movement and virtually they controlled the entire province. The National Assembly, however, could not even meet on March 25 due to widespread disturbances in East Pakistan where the army moved in on march 26, 'to control the situation' or launching ruthless atrocities against the innocent people. The civil disobedience movement later developed into a war of national liberation fully backed by the Indian army. As a result, Pakistani forces had to surrender to the Indian Army, and almost over 93,000 military personnel were taken as prisoners of war on December 16, 1971. Thus ended an important era of the largest Muslim state, Pakistan. A new and smaller Pakistan emerged on 16 December 1971. Demoralized and finding himself unable to control the situation, Yahya Khan surrendered power to Bhutto who was sworn-in on December 20, 1971 as President and the Chief Martial Law Administrator. Among the generals, once again, there seemed to be a deep cleavage about the future course of action. The generals close to Yahya Khan wanted him to stop transferring power to the then Commander-inChief, General Abdul Hamid Khan.The hawkish generals, such as Gul Hassan and Air Marshal Rahim Khan, however are rumored to have practically forced Yahya Khan at gun point to transfer power to Bhutto, who thus became the first civilian to take as Chief Martial Law Administrator and President of Pakistan. [7] Such was the background of events against which the Bhutto era of Pakistan's political history began on December 20, 1971. On Bhutto's role in the cessation of East Pakistan it is argued that as the National assembly was to sit at Dacca, Bhutto prevented members of the National Assembly from West Pakistan from going to Dacca, by threatening them that he would break the legs of those who went to Dacca. He also tore to pieces the Polish Resolution in the United Nations which had proposed that the two belligerent states should revert to their original positions before the war had begun. "You on that side and I on this side," is another expression which Bhutto is alleged to have addressed to Mujib.[8]


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Chapter VI What led to the break-up of Pakistan?Chapter 3

Page 1Why Pakistan could not survive as a united country? There was a long history of political, economic and cultural causes that eventually developed the demands of provincial autonomy in East Pakistan into a secessionist movement. It might have been saved in March 1971, but the power elites of West Pakistan were not prepared to let the system be transformed into one more acceptable to the East. Political system in Pakistan broke down in 1971 largely because of the inordinate delay in framing a constitution giving birth to a stable political order, the eclipse of democracy and a deep rooted internal dissension and conflict between East and West Pakistan. The task of constitution-making was hampered due to the divergent perceptions in East and West Pakistan in almost every aspect. While India had agreed on and adopted its constitution by January 26, 1949, it was not until March 7, 1949, that the Pakistan Constituent Assembly drew up what came to be known as the Objectives Resolution and began to concentrate on the task of evolving a constitution. The Constituent Assembly's Basic Principles Committee (BPC) produced its first set of interim propo

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