Why did Pakistan fail to achieve a stable democracy between 1947 and 1971?

The political arena within Pakistan was chaotic from the start. Jinnah became Governor General in 1947 after partition, with Liaquat Ali Khan as his prime minister. His party, the Muslim League, was divided into warring factions that even had divisions and conflicts within themselves. Despite this Jinnah’s outlook from the beginning was described as “democratic” and as he was able to keep himself above factional feuds due to “his enormous standing in Muslim politics”. There were glimmers of hope that he could bring about some sort of political stability. However aged 71, he was neither young nor well when independence came and could not dedicate the full vigour that he once had. He died a year later on September 11 1948 failing to leave the nation anything remotely resembling a stable democratic government. After his death power came to Liaquat, who had a lesser political standing yet had a lot more problems to deal with. He did have a “feel for the popular pulse” but being a refugee from India he never had any real support. Many argued that he was incompetent at his job and in 1951 when he was assassinated a Bengali, Khwaja Nazimuddin became Prime Minister in his stead. Pakistan’s third governor at that time was Ghulam Mohammed, a hardened bureaucrat with “no appetite for democratic practises”, and in close contact with the military he dismissed Nazimuddin and later on, in October 1954, the constituent assembly also, (when it tried to curb some of his powers).  So within the first years of independence, there was lack of strong democratic leadership. Every few years the leadership changed and by 1958, there had been seven prime ministers. So this period was characterised by great uncertainty as politicians engaged in “continuous power struggles”, their goal being “self perpetuation and plunder” rather than service to the “the suffering Pakistani masses”.

Democracy was also hindered by delays in establishing a constitution because of fierce debate over whether “Pakistan should adopt an Islamic or secular form of government” and also East Pakistan’s annoyance over its under-representation in the non-elective institutions. The concept of parliament soon lost all credibility in Pakistan as it seemed incompetent, unrepresentative and the executives often tended to bypass it and rule by ordinance.  Elections were finally held in 1954, on a restricted franchise where the overwhelming majority that East Pakistan gained was ignored as the constituent assembly was dissolved as not being representative enough. The new assembly that met in 1955 elected a West Pakistani prime minister and produced a new constitution in 1956 declaring Pakistan an Islamic republic with a new president, General Iskander Miza. So the parliaments that did exist were never truly democratic “excluding the people from the process of decision making”.

After the republic of Pakistan was founded, political instability continued because “no stable majority party emerged in the National Assembly”. Several short lived coalition governments followed with President Miza constantly forcing prime ministers to resign. When Miza realised that his support was diminishing he claimed he was “dissatisfied with parliamentary democracy” and proclaimed martial law on October 7th 1958, dismissing the government and dissolving the National assembly once again. Although he was initially supported by General Muhammed Ayub Khan, commander-in chief of the armed forces. Twenty days later Ayub forced the president to resign and took the presidency for himself in the first of many coups d’etats in Pakistan’s history. Sadly the army’s entry into politics was “greeted with a sense of relief by large segments of the population” who had become disillusioned and “disgusted with the prevalence of corruption, nepotism and dishonesty” that the politicians called democracy; to them it was simply a facade that was hiding dictatorship. The new military regime although undemocratic did bring far more stability but made true democracy less likely.

Ayub ruled Pakistan for more than 10 years and although he made some “notable achievements, it did not eliminate the basic problems of Pakistani society”. The disparity between East and West was never eliminated despite the threefold increase in developmental funds to the East and also tensions within West Pakistan remained even though land was redistributed to try to erode the feudal system that existed there. It was deemed to be “a socially liberal and politically benevolent authoritarian regime… hailed to be the most stable in Pakistan’s chequered history”. However Ayub like those before him still concentrated on “centralising state authority”. Political parties were banned and politicians purged. In 1962 Ayub formally lifted marital law to try to “legitimise his rule” claiming that what was needed was some form of “controlled democracy, the emphasis being on control rather than democracy”. He was so confident of the lack of opposition to his government that he even called an election in 1964 to try to prove his country was a democracy. He won the election, but narrowly which shook his confidence. That, combined with the second war with India over Kashmir in 1965, which frustrated many people, and the economic downturn in the country, all contributed to Ayub finally resigning in March 1969. Instead of democratically handing over power to the National Assembly as the constitution dictated, he gave it to General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, who promptly declared martial law once again in the second military coup d’etat in the country’s history. So the reign of Ayub, although he might have liked to call it a democracy, was one which “weakened, corrupted and politicised the existing institutions to the extent that they refused to work”, not taking Pakistan an inch close to democracy but rather taking backward strides.

Yahya’s regime lasted for thirty-three eventful months during which a bitter conflict waged between East and West Pakistan. The Awami League, the East Pakistani party, soon started to insist on a federation, which meant almost total independence for the East. Yahya announced full, free and fair elections in 1970 to try to stop this unrest. In this election the Bengali’s won an absolute majority, meaning its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Mujib, should have been the new leader of Pakistan. Old rivalries however meant that Yahya postponed the convening of the National Assembly not wanting to hand over power. Mujib retaliated, establishing a virtually independent government in East Pakistan, for which he was arrested and tried for treason. Meanwhile Pakistan’s army took action against Mujib’s supporters in the East. The army’s incursion into Bengal was very bloody with many casualties and almost 10 million refugees moving into India. When the problem of refugees became too severe for India, it finally intervened, declaring war on Pakistan on December 3rd 1971. Thirteen days later Pakistan surrendered, Yahya relinquished power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and East Pakistan declared independence on January 1972, calling itself Bangladesh. Whilst civil war raged on in Pakistan, the conditions for setting up democracy were not ideal and fear of the military meant less open debate and criticism.  So given the amount of internal conflict, there was no room for democracy to be established.

After Yahya gave up power, it could be said by looking at Bhutto taking power after that, that democracy had finally won through. The PPP was the largest party in Pakistan, and was now in leadership due to a fair, free election which they had fairly won. However this shift from “military-bureaucratic authoritarianism to parliamentary democracy” didn’t last very long as after Bhutto another military regime was established, via a coup d’etat in 1977 under General Muhammad Zia-ul-Hag. So sadly the regime still hasn’t been able to achieve a stable democracy even today. There were hints of democracy from 1947-51 as some aspects of some of the different dictators regimes showed. However overall Pakistan’s history has been a most turbulent one, “producing anything but a participatory democracy” where men have lusted after power for their own purposes and the people have suffered without a say in how their country is run. As Kapur put it “they had not been groomed in the nursery of democracy and in the ideas of individual freedom, liberty and nationalism”. Subsequently because of this fact, the country did and will find problems in developing fully.

2,124 words

Bibliography

Shahid Javed Burki, “Pakistan, A Nation in the Making” Oxford 1986

Hebert Feldman, “The End and the Beginning, Pakistan 1969-1971” Oxford 1975

Ayesha Jalal, “Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia” Cambridge 1998

Ashok Kapur, “Pakistan in crisis”, London 1991

Tasneem Ahmad Siddiqui, “Towards Good Governance”, Oxford 2001

Surendra Nath Kaushik “Politics in Pakistan”, India 1985

Other resources

Encarta Encyclopaedia article “Pakistan”

---