Archive for the '1949-1951' Category

Constitutional & Political Challenges During Liaquat’s Premiership - 2/2 (1949-51)

Athar Osama June 25th, 2007

By: Athar Osama

On Monday (June 25th, 2007), we began our investigtion of Liaquat Ali Khan tenure as the first Prime Minister of Pakistan. We looked Liaquat’s credentials for the responsibility that was put on his shoulders, the early difficulties he faced in bringing the nation together and healing its wounds in the immediate aftermath of Jinnah’s death, and his attempts to find a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir crisis. We also looked at the immediate political challenges faced by Liaquat’s Ministry.

pk-Liaqat_death.jpgIn this piece, we look at two other important aspects of Liaquat’s Premiership, namely, progress in constitution-making (most specifically the objectives resolution) and his foreign policy posture (i.e. Pakistan’s pro-Western foreign policy stance). Both these issues have defined Pakistan’s history over several decades that followed and remain, to this day, unresolved. Yet, it was during Liaquat’s momentous premiership that Pakistan first attempted to address these… 

Pakistan’s Constitutional Problems

While the Center-Province relations in this early phase of Pakistan’s history were far from ideal, the inter-provincial relations also presented a sorry picture. Until Quaid-e-Azam’s death in fall of 1948, the Constituent Assembly whose primary purpose was to create the first constitution for Pakistan had made little progress in actually doing so. Much of its legislative energy had thus far been spent in emergency legislation that was necessary in day-to-day operation of the country. Two issues represent the significant challenges it faced in making worthwhile progress on the constitutional question.

The negotiation on center-province (i.e. relative distribution of power between federal and provincial governments) inter-provincial relations (i.e. the make up of the legislative organs in the new constitution) was in a state of a deadlock with East Pakistani Province of East Bengal that commanded a sizeable majority in the Constituent Assembly seeking representation based on population while Punjab (and, to a lesser extent, the other provinces of West Pakistan) seeking to deny the same. 

The second issue that presented a major hurdle in Constituent Assembly’s progress toward the constitutional question was a lack of census on the Islamic character of Pakistan. This was especially a precarious issue because of the need to preserve the rights and liberties of a significant minority of Hindus that had remained in Pakistan since Independence. Hindus made up not so insignificant populations in all West Pakistani provinces—most notably Sindh—and a fairly significant one in East Pakistan from where they also held several seats in the Constituent Assembly.

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Orignal Documents: Memo from CIA on Liaquat’s Assasination

Understanding Pakistan Project Team May 25th, 2007

The American Government, including the State Department and CIA, released a number of original documents relating to Pakistan’s early history because either somebody filed a Freedom of Information Request or they were just deemed not enough sensitive enough–with several decades having passed–that it was considered OK to declassify them and make them available to the general public. We will attempt to bring some of these documents to you–not necessarily because they reflect truth in their entirety–but because they provide a unique perspective of a foreign country and its intelligence operation on events happening in Pakistan.

One that especially caught my attention with the Memo CIA wrote on Liaquat’s Assasination in 1951. It is interesting, how the CIA assessed–perhaps rightly so–that none of the likely contenders of the Prime Ministerial spot that survived Liaquat was capable enough to succeed him. The memo seems to shed the doubt (only a doubt, nothing implied here) on Khaksars as being behind Liaquat’s assassination (I don’t think anything has been brought to light on that matter ever). It also carried CVs of three likely successors at the end.

By the way, before the memo, this is what General Ayub Khan had to say on the politicians’ reaction on Liaquat’s death in his book, Friends not Masters:

“…I met several members of the new Cabinet in Karachi–Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin … and others. None of them mentioned Liaquat Ali’s name, nor did I hear a word of sympathy or regret from any of of them. Governor-General Ghulam Mohammad seemed equally unaware of the fact that the country has lost an eminent and capable Prime Minister…I wondered at how callous, cold-blooded,  and selfish people could be…It seemed that every one of them had got himself promoted…It was disgusting and revolting…I got the distinct impression that they were all feeling relieved that the only person who might have kept them under control  had disappeated from scene…”  (quoted in: Cloughley , 1991,  p.29)

Some of this might be exaggerated because Ayub was no fan of the politicians and the book was written in his later years when he had an axe to grind from bringing disrepute to them but some it might be accurate too.

 Anyways, now the CIA memo:

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