Archive for the '1951-1954' Category

Guest Post: Jama’at e Islami and Religious Politics in 1950s

Understanding Pakistan Project Team July 23rd, 2007

By: Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr (Excerpt from: Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft9j49p32d/)
 

Entering the Political Process, 1947–1958

pk7-maud_b.jpgAfter Mawdudi had unveiled the Jama‘at-i Islami’s political objectives in Pakistan for the first time in July 1947,[1] he collected his troops and moved to Lahore on a truck, escorted by units of the Pakistan army. His first contact with the leaders of the new state took place soon after through the Muslim League ministry in Punjab. While he was still living in a tent in Islamiyah Park, Mawdudi met with the Muslim League chief minister of the province, Nawwab Iftikhar Husain of Mamdot.[2] In that meeting Mawdudi asked for permission to begin work among the refugees, and he discussed the future of Kashmir.[3] Mawdudi impressed upon the nawwab Pakistan’s obligation immediately to take the offensive in Kashmir and secure control of strategic locations there, and asked the chief minister to relay a message to that effect to Prime Minister Liaqat ‘Ali Khan. (Figure: Maulana Abul Ala Maududi: The Founder of the Jama’at-i-Islami)

The Nawwab of Mamdot was a powerful member of the landed gentry of Punjab and was at the time embroiled in a struggle with Liaqat ‘Ali Khan and his chief ally in Punjab, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, over the control of that province.[4] The chief minister was eager to enlist the support of Islamic groups such as the Jama‘at to stave off Daultana’s challenge.[5] Mamdot, therefore, not only welcomed the Jama‘at’s offer to assist with relief work among the refugees, but invited Mawdudi to deliver a series of talks on Radio Pakistan.[6] All unwitting, Mawdudi had walked into the midst of a tug-of-war in Pakistani politics that was to determine relations between the Jama‘at and the central government.

Mawdudi quickly learned that, given the balance of power in Pakistani politics, the Islamic parties were bound to play the role of power brokers. Muslim League leaders, concluded Mawdudi, were not as inimical to sacralization of politics as their postindependence rhetoric may have indicated. In fact, as the central government in Karachi faced difficulties in exerting control over the new country’s wayward provinces during 1947–1948 and the crisis before the state grew, the legitimating role of Islam and the power of its spokesmen became more evident. Politicians who otherwise decried the political role of religion were under the circumstances not altogether indifferent to the entry of Islamic groups into the fray. The example set by Mamdot was followed elsewhere, in Lahore as well as in other provincial capitals. The relations between the Muslim League and the Jama‘at during the prepartition years were now expanded to encompass the relations between Islam and the state of Pakistan. The holy community found great strength in acting as a party.

Pakistan was founded in the name of Islam, but it had little else in the way of common national or cultural values around which to unite.

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Guest Column: 1950s - The Struggles between Interest Groups

Understanding Pakistan Project Team July 23rd, 2007

Guest Column* By Aqil Sajjad

Six decades after independence, Pakistan continues to struggle with basic issues relating to democracy and constitutionalism. The country has yet to see a smooth change of government through elections. The rot started at the very outset as the political leadership found it difficult to reconcile the various interests competing with each other to produce a widely acceptable constitution. The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the prominent interest groups that were involved and how their differences contributed to the constitutional delay and the political instability that marked the years leading up to the military take over in 1958.

pk-p0717010101.jpgBroadly speaking, there were three distinct groups that joined Pakistan. These were East Pakistanis, those who migrated from Hindu majority areas to West Pakistan, and the indigenous people of West Pakistan.
 
East Pakistan was geographically, culturally and ethnically distinct from West Pakistan. Among its features were a large population, low level of education, absence of feudalism, and a greater propensity for political activism among the masses.

The people of West Pakistan were also generally less educated, but the political scene in this wing was dominated by the landed aristocracy. Moreover, unlike the mostly homogeneous population of East Pakistan, the people of West Pakistan had considerable ethnic and cultural diversity. This along with the larger geographical area often resulted in sharp divergence of interests between the four units in this wing.  

The third group of Pakistanis comprised those who had come from the Hindu majority areas. Their influx and the exodus of Hindus who migrated to India had a huge demographic impact and thus played an important role in shaping the political landscape of Pakistan.

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Pakistan’s Constitutional Deadlock and Breakthrough - 1/2 (1951-54)

Athar Osama July 2nd, 2007

By: Athar Osama 

We left the story of Pakistan last week at a critical juncture in its history. The new country is in its fifth year since independence. It has lost two of its most capable leaders—first, Quaid-e-Azam (the greatest leader) who passed away merely a year after independence and, second, Quaid-e-Millat (the leader of the nation) who was assassinated just four years into the journey.

The country has already seen an unsuccessful military coup (the Rawalpindi Conspiracy) and while it has survived the mammoth effects of the partition, stability and prosperity is still a long way ahead. During the short few years, a number of challenges have rocked the country, thus further adding to this instability. The dispute over water of the rivers, boundaries in Kashmir, allegations of corruption in allocation of evacuee property, and a fast deteriorating drought that began as early as the last quarter of 1947 in the eastern wing are a few of these.

First Signs of Trouble in East Pakistan

In fact, in some parts of the country—especially the province of East Bengal—the Muslim population which was under the illusion—perhaps naively so—of having achieved a mythical Islamic state where welfare of the poor and social justice would reign supreme, is already getting a bit restless due to the perceived gap between that lofty ideal and the reality on the ground. Badruddin Umar, in The Emergence of Bangladesh: Class Struggles in East Pakistan (1947-58), writes:

“[After the partition] the whole political perspective was [thus] transformed, and the communal contradiction which caused the partition of the country was replaced by contradictions between the two regions and the ethnically and linguistically different people who belonged to the Muslim community…The Muslim peasants, workers and middle class people were taught to visualize Pakistan as a dreamland, where milk and honey would flow, everyone would get education and suitable job, healthcare would be a routine matter, and there would a flowering of the culture espoused during the Pakistan movement. What really happened was that the Muslims of East Bengal, who constituted the vast majority of population, were quite confused and bewildered at the barrenness of the dreamland called Pakistan, where they had to go hungry and die of famine, where no surplus land was distributed among the poor peasants and sharecroppers, where very little new opportunities were opened up for the working masses and the educated sections of the people and life in all aspects remained as torturous as before. ”  (Umar, 2004, p.15-16)

In East Bengal, which was the most politically literate and aware province of Pakistan—perhaps entire British India—and was also the birth place of All India Muslim League itself, this anti-exploitation sentiment now turned into an anti-Muslim League and soon anti-Pakistan sentiment.

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Pakistan’s Constitutional Deadlock and Breakthrough - 2/2 (1951-54)

Athar Osama July 2nd, 2007

By: Athar Osama 

In the first of the two pieces on Pakistan’s Constitutional Deadlock in early-1950s, on July 2nd,  2007, we looked at the emerging debate and unrest in the provice of East Pakistan. We examined the pendulum of constitutional progress swing all the way towards a pro-Punjab and anit-Bengal position in the interim report of the Basic Principles Committee and then all the way to a pro-Bengal and anti-Punjab position in the final report of the Basic Principles Committee. Unfortunately, Khwaja Nazimuddin became the first victim of this constitutional deadlock that existed between the two largest provinces of the country. In this artcle, we will examine the progress made under the new Prime Minister, Mohammad Ali Bogra–another Bengali–who almost provided Pakistan with its first Constitution.

Constitutional Progress through the “Mohammad Ali Formula”

pk2-dawn18april1953.jpg

With Khawaja Nazimuddin out of the picture, Mohammad Ali Bogra was installed as the new Prime Minister. Mohammad Ali Bogra was a statesman of Bengali descent who came from the family of Nawabs of Bengal (Wikipedia, 2007). At the time of his appointment as Prime Minister, he was serving as the country’s ambassador to the United States and was hurriedly called back to take over the Ministry.

Mohammad Ali Bogra had a tight rope to walk as he balanced the Punjabi interests—to whom he owed his appointment—and the Bengali resentment towards perceived domination by Punjabi politicians—most notably the Governor General himself (Sayeed, 1960, p. 418). In the Cabinet as well, Bogra had little support of his own as he tried to act as a go between the two powerful interest groups. Undaunted by this, however, Bogra took on the challenge for finding a compromise solution to the country’s constitutional impasse.

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