Understanding Pakistan Project

Athar Osama July 23rd, 2007

By: Athar Osama

Socio-Economic and Political Reforms of Ayub’s Era-I (1958-62)

With the power firmly in the hands of the Chief Martial Law Administrator, he set upon the task of creating country of his vision. Feldman (1967, p. 44) describes the state of the President’s mind in the following words:

“He knew that he was expected to collaborate unstintingly with a government confessedly authoritarian, claiming to derive its sanction from the necessities of a desperate situation and promising, unequivocally, to justify itself by a resolute purification of public life, by a program of indispensable reforms, and by adoption of a fresh constitution which would adequately and appropriately satisfy the citizen’s right to speak and participate in his country’s affairs”

Ayub Khan adopted an essentially technocratic mode of government depending upon a number of committees and commissions to help in policy formulation. In all, the Martial Law Administration, during its entire tenure, set up as many as 25 different commissions to deliberate on policy matters within a wide variety of domains. These included:

- Company Law Commission                            - Constitution Commission                   - Credit Inquiry Commission
- Education Reform Commission                      - Federal Capital Commission              - Finance Commission
- Food & Agriculture Commission                    - Franchise Commission                        - Jute Inquiry Commission
- Land Reforms Commission                            - Land Revenue Commission               - Manpower Commission
- Law Reform Commission                               - Maritime Commission                        - Medical Reforms Commission
- Pay & Services Commission                           - Police Commission                              - Press Commission
- Price Commission                                            - Scientific Commission                         - Social Evils Commission
- Sport, Culture, Art, & Literature Com.         – Sugar Commission                             - Taxation Inquiry Commission
- Textile Inquiry Commission

The sheer scope of the subjects that these commissions dealt with makes one wonder about the volume of policy work carried out in the early years of Ayub Khan’s era. It also makes one think as to how, without carrying out these necessary reforms in a whole variety of different areas, the country was being run in the preceding nine years of its existence. Clearly, not every one of the commissions formed during Ayub Khan’s regime undertook work of equal importance, nor did they achieve similar results, but the fact that the government was able to devote its attention to all these areas cannot escape one’s attention. 

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• Ayub Khan , Foreign Policy , Kashmir , Martial Law , Economics , Society & Culture , Politics , 1958-1962 , Military , Education , History in a Nutshell
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Understanding Pakistan Project Team July 19th, 2007

By: Niilofur Farrukh

The DNA code of Pakistani painting is a complex one. The early experiment with the stem cells of modern art movements to further a nationalist agenda birthed a Pakistani modernity. The artist not content to be on the fringe turned into the protagonist of the ‘other story’- a saga of three decades that chronicles the trauma of a heterogeneous people learning to be a nation and an agenda of conscience that defied the colonization of the spirit. writes Niilofur Farrukh, The Editor of NuktaArt, a contemporary art history magazine in Pakistan, and the research director of Project Art History Pakistan. 

The maelstrom unleashed by the cartographer’s pen, circa 1947, deepened political fault lines in South Asia. The resulting volatility, fractured a people that were once united in a freedom struggle again colonial fetters. What followed, was the largest displacement of people in history and the birth of two nations.

Like ‘midnights children’ poised on the cusp of loss and gain, the nations struggled to gain a sense of self. The itinerary of the artists could not escape new ideologies. The dynamics of disconnect and displacement opened unexplored territory and a different imperative.To the Indian artist a continuum of the aesthetics of land and religion held no contradiction. The Pakistani artist faced with the aftermath of a three way divorce between land, religion and cultural history had yet to determine philosophical moorings.

Fully aware of their place in history, the manifesto of the artists of nascent Pakistan could not escape the spirit of the time. The political and social leadership that had its roots in the Western educated Muslim elite of undivided India had begun to seriously question the relevance of orthodoxy in a progressive modern future. Contemporary values of the industrialized nations based on reason and science were considered the engine of advancement. Their primary concern became a robust intellectual, economic and social participation in the modern age.

Poet Iqbal, the mentor of this generation with his message of khudi (self) had already reinforced the awakening of individuality and personal ambition and this chipped away at the edifice of fatalistic beliefs, as his verses became the new mantra

Khudi ko kar buland itna kay ha taqdeer say pehlay
Khuda panday say khud poochay, bata tayree raza hia hai

(elevate yourself to such heights of achievement that god is compelled
to consult you before he decides your fate)

This paradigm shift manifested itself in art and experiments with the modern idiom provided a framework to re-examine a familiar cultural terrain.

The upheaval of the last years of the Freedom Movement had created an awareness for the need of ‘a vital new expression, as Raza’s explained ‘ the revivalist movement of the Bengal school despite laudable effort it made to instill an awareness of our cultural heritage, seemed literary works, sentimental, delicate and unresponsive to the pace and anguish of our time’ These views found resonance among the aspiring modernists of Pakistan. Ahmed Pervaz, Sheikh Safdar, Shemza, Moyene Najmi and Ali Imam founded the Lahore Art Circle in the early 1950’s. Once again, Lahore, home to Emperor Akbar royal atelier, became the site of a bold new experiment in the visual arts.

A similar movement led by Zainul Abedin was initiated in the Eastern wing of Pakistan. Zubeida Agha (Figure: “Karachi by Night” by Zubeida Agha, painted in 1956), also a Lahorite, had the honor to be the first modernist to hold a solo show as early as 1949 in Karachi. Social taboos separated her from her peers of the Lahore Art Circle as it was unacceptable for a young woman to be seen in the company of male artists and poets at their nocturnal meetings at Lahore’s coffee houses where debates usually raged well into the night. Her gender however did not stop her from making a seminal contribution even if it dictated a separate, often lonely path.

[Editor’s Note: Next Page Contains Some Fascinating, yet heavy bite-sized graphic files that might take, depending upon your computer speed, a while to download. Please be patient as they download - Ed.]

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• Society & Culture , GuestColumns
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