Understanding Pakistan Project

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.

In 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.

If Pakistan were to realize Quaid’s dream of building a pluralistic society where one’s religion didn’t matter, It was not only important to protect these minorities from the oppression of the majority but also to give them a sense of fairness in all dealings of the state. On 10th of August, 1947, just days before the transfer of power, Jinnah had addressed the Constituent Assembly with the following words:

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan…. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed-that has nothing to do with the business of the State…. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens of one State.”

Those words, coming from the creator of the first Muslim “Homeland” in the world have baffled many an observer for six decades now. Chaudhary Mohammad Ali, in his “The Emergence of Pakistan”, speculates:

“Could it be…that as soon as Pakistan was won the Quaid-i-Azam abandoned the two-nation theory and invited all its citizens, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to work together for the state on the basis of territorial nationalism? What then was its raison d’etre, and what would be its distinguishing characteristics? Had the two nation theory merely been the scaffolding that was to be discarded once the structure was built?”

Stanley Wolpert, a biographer of Jinnah, writes in astonishment:

“What was he talking about? Had he simply forgotten where he was? Had the cyclone of events so disoriented him that he was arguing the opposition’s belief? Was he pleading for a united India-on the eve of Pakistan-before those hundreds of thousands of terrified innocents were slaughtered, fleeing their homes, their fields, their ancestral villages and running to an eternity of oblivion or a refugee camp in a strange land?”

Several Pakistani scholars, however, have tried to explain these words by distinguishing between what Jinnah was forced to seek, given the myopic and parochial attitude of Congress in the pre-partition days, and what he really wanted to create in the sub-continent. The Pakistani scholar Akbar S. Ahmed has called this speech Jinnah’s ‘Gettysburg Address’. According to him it was ‘an outpouring of ideas on the state and nature of society, almost a stream of consciousness’ which reflected the Quaid’s ‘vision for the state he had created’. Ayesha Jalal, another notable historian of South Asia, notes that ‘although the speech was promptly suppressed by the official guardians of Pakistan’s ideological frontiers, it has served as the Magna Carta for those who…style themselves as the true inheritors of Jinnah’s political legacy’.  (Tang and Kudaisya, 2000)

Regardless of what Jinnah actually meant, these words—and what they implied for the constitution—did not go well with the religious establishment that, having bitterly opposed the idea of Pakistan initially, had by now wholeheartedly embraced it as their only hope to create an Islamic state patterned after Khilafat-e-Rashida (the reign of the Rightly Guided Caliphs) in the subcontinent. 

These two issues lingered on, as in the words of Binder (1963), “so long as the government avoided the problem of framing a constitution the religious questions remained open. So long as a federal solution was not assured the government was reluctant to approach the problem of constitution making.” until, they came to a head at the end of 1948 when a draft Constitution was presented in India. In characteristically Pakistani style, it became a matter of national prestige to do something about the constitution and, in the process, take the bull of religion and federalism by its horns.

A decision was made, however, to approach the constitutional question in a step-by-step manner and to make some progress by presenting a resolution on “Aims and Objectives of the Constitution” in the Constituent Assembly that would help create a terms of reference for the subsequent constitution-making exercise.

The Objectives Resolution

This resolution, popularly known as the “Objectives Resolution”, was presented before the Constituent Assembly on March 7, 1949 and passed just five days later on March 12, 1949. It was hailed as the “most important occasion in the life of Pakistan, next in importance only to the achievement of independence” itself (Khan, 2001, p. 59). The Objectives Resolution attracted considerable criticism from within the country, especially from the non-Muslim minorities who objected on several clauses and wordings.

The most significant criticism was leveled against its opening clause—what is often called the Sovereignty Clause—that stated that “Where as sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty and authority that He has delegated to the state of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust…” Two members of the Congress in Pakistan objected to this clause with view that “if sovereignty belongs to God it does not belong to the people, thus Pakistan would not be a democratic state. For those who are less ready to quibble, acknowledging the sovereignty of God was no more than a polite nod in the direction of the mosque, harmless at worst and beneficial if it appeased the “mullahs”; “in this sense however, it is patent that the entire universe is a theocracy, for is there any corner in the entire creation where His authority does not exist?” (Binder, 1963, p.144).

As soon as the resolution was moved, Prem Hari Barma, a Hindu member, circulated a motion to seek more time to elicit public opinion on the bill. Another Hindu member Sris Chandra Chattopadhyaya, seconded the motion. Liaquat Ali Khan, however, apposed the motion and it was defeated in a vote the same day. During the course of the reading and debate of the Bill, several objections were raised on a number of clauses of the bill. The non-Muslim members emphasized the democratic aspirations and ideals of the Quaid stating that “were this Resolution to come before this house within the life-time of the Quaid-e-Azam, it would not have come its present shape” and warned against mixing religion with the business of the state lest political criticism may be interpreted as blasphemy (Khan, 2001, p. 63).

The Muslim members, on the other hand, emphasized the social justice, equality, and democratic character of Islam as the basis of the governance in the Muslim state. Mr. I. H. Qureshi noted that “the resolution [merely] says that our polity should be based on God-consciousness”. Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar pointed out that “it [the sovereignty of God] is a statement of fact and whether we say it or not it is true” (Binder, 1963). Others emphasized that the preamble only “affirmed the need to keep religion as a moral force joined to politics”. Liaquat Ali Khan elucidated upon his idea of “Islamic democracy”, as different from Western democracy, as a system of governance implied in the resolution.

In all, non-Muslim members of the assembly proposed as many as seventeen (17) amendments to the resolution. At the end of the debate, each one of these amendments were tabled in front of the house and voted upon. All amendments were defeated by a strictly communal vote of 21-10 with 21 Muslims voting against and 10 Hindus voting for the amendments. Hamid Khan, in his “Constitutional and Political History of Pakistan” notes the strictly communal character of this vote—a fact not often emphasized in official texts on Pakistan history where the Objectives Resolution is invariably hailed as (unanimous) success for the entire nation—and wonders if it would have been “in the larger national interest” to have accommodated some of the “quite reasonable and moderate” amendments so as to try to bring about a unanimous passage of the resolution (Khan, 2001, p.65). 

Several authors also point out the remarkable speed with which the Objectives Resolution was passed by the Constitutent Assembly and the little time that the peoples’ representatives or the peoples themselves were allowed to debate this singularly most important resolution of Pakistan’s constitutional history. There is a sense in the literature that the concept of an Islamic state–beyond the fact that Shariah will be imposed in it–was not amply clear at that time nor there was attempt to clearly define how, by whom, and in what form? Liaquat Ali Khan, for one, also used terms like Islamic democracy, Islamic socialism, and socialism per se to describe how he thought about governance and constitution in Pakistan. None of these terms, however, were adequately defined to allow for an informed dialogue and discussion.

Immediately after the passage of the Objectives Resolution, the Constituent Assembly set up a number of different committees and sub-committees to begin working on different parts of the Constitution. The twenty-five member Basic Principles Committee (BPC) was the most important of these committees and was set up under the chairmanship of Maulvi Tamizzudin Khan, the president of the Assembly. The primary task of this committee was to elucidate the basic principles of the future constitution of Pakistan in accordance with that Objectives Resolution. Concurrently, a Board of Scholars by the name of Talimat-e-Islamia was established to advise the Basic Principles Committee (BPC) of the implications of the Objectives Resolution on matters under the purview of the Committee.

Confronting the Inter-Provincial Relations Issue

The BPC and its various sub-committees immediately began working on the Constitutional structure. Working through November 1949, the sub-committee on Constitutions and Powers, for example, decided that the overall structure of the Constitution must be bicameral—representing both provinces and the population—and a parliamentary democracy patterned after Britain. In doing so, the committee was clearly influenced by the knowledge of its members of the working of the British democracy (Binder, 1963) and it is not clear if and to what extent the committee considered alternate models of democratic governance (such as the Presidential system).

The sub-committee on Franchise which was to deliberate on the exact structure and representation in the upper and lower chambers of the legislature had not completed its work till 1950 (Khan, 2001, p. 68) – and for a good reason. Punjab—the largest province by area, and Bengal, the largest province by population, were in a virtual deadlock over matters of representation. The deadlock was so strong that the BPC was often jokingly referred to as the Bengali-Punjabi Controversy.

Binder (1963) describes the Provincial differences on the basic principle issues in the following words:

“The Punjabis desired to enhance the federal aspect of the central parliament, whereas the Bengalis preferred to emphasize its democratic aspect. The Punjab is the most advanced province of Pakistan, if industry, literacy, urbanization, and membership in the civil service and the military are adequate criteria. Bengal is certainly the most populous province, and if not the most politically aware, at least it may be said that Bengalis are acutely self-conscious. The smaller and more backward provinces of West Pakistan, insofar as their wishes were represented by their governments, were mostly concerned with maintaining their independence of the Punjab and their autonomy vis-à-vis the central government.”  (Binder, 1963, p.203)

Since an equality of powers between the two houses was envisioned in the BPC Interim Report, it nullified Bengal’s numerical majority in the combined houses and made it a mere one-fifth minority in an equally powerful upper-house. The report received scathing criticism from East Pakistan where it was widely seen as an attempt to “convert the eastern province into a colony of West Pakistan”. The report was also widely criticized by the Islamic Scholars, including the Talima’at Islamic Board, who questioned its Islamic credentials. According to them, it wasn’t enough to merely declare Objectives Resolution as the Preamble and that Constitution itself must incorporate the concept of an Islamic State.

With such adverse reactions originating from across the country, Liaquat Ali Khan shelved the BPC Interim Report for the time-being with a view to soliciting more opinions from across the country. 

Liaquat’s Crowning Achievement and Final Days

In the last couple of years of Liaquat’s Premiership, tensions between India and Pakistan once again began to increase. This time the issues at stake were communal violence against minorities within the two countries. Another problem was the devaluation of the Pakistani currency. In order to promote its exports, Pakistan had devaluated its currency. India refused to accept the Pakistani rupee, with the result that trade broke down between the two Bengals. The loss of Pakistan’s market for jute in West Bengal coincided with a decline in world demand due to the British financial crisis, and the American recession. On the other side of the line, jute-mill workers were idle in Calcutta. In February, along with the failure and the dissolution of the UNCIP, communal riots broke out in both Bengals (Binder, 1963).

Communication between the two prime ministers continued through March until Liaquat flew to Delhi on April 1, to begin the negotiations that led to the important Liaquat-Nehru Pact of April 8, 1950. This pact provided a ‘bill of rights’ for the minorities of India and Pakistan. Its aim was to address the following three issues:

• To alleviate the fears of the religious minorities on both sides.
• To elevate communal peace.
• To create an atmosphere in which the two countries could resolve their other differences

According to the agreement, the governments of India and Pakistan solemnly agreed that each shall ensure, to the minorities throughout its territories, complete equality of citizenship, irrespective of religion; a full sense of security in respect of life, culture, property and personal honor. (Wikipedia, 2007)

The pact is significant not only because it led to a temporary détente, but because it provided an international guarantee that minorities in both countries should enjoy equal civil rights, and because the pact was in large measure a personal achievement of Liaquat (Binder, 1963).

Another one of Liaquat’s most substantive—and perhaps controversial—foreign policy initiatives was to put Pakistan onto a pro-western (specifically United States) rather than pro-Soviet course in foreign relations. In fact, Liaquat made it a point to snub a Soviet invitation to visit the USSR and proceeded to the United States instead thus cementing one relationship at the expense of the other. Liaquat’s critics point to this instance as a point where Pakistan antagonized the Soviets and put India firmly in Soviet camp while his supporters note that the latter was inevitable with or without Liaquat’s initiative adopt a pro-Western policy stance. (Kazimi, 2003, p. 340).

While Liaquat returned home after the Liaquat-Nehru Pact as a hero in the eyes of moderates who wanted peace and security in the two countries, he had also created enemies as a result. In the last year of his life, Liaquat Ali Khan was at the center of coup attempt by several Army and Airforce officers to topple the central government—in what is often referred to as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy.

On October 16th of the same year (1951), while addressing an open gathering in Rawalpindi, Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated by an Afghan named Akbar Khan. In a classic copy-book approach of a conspiracy, the assassin was shot to death on the spot by a policeman who himself was murdered a few weeks later. When bullets struck Liaquat, he prayed in his last breath “God Protect Pakistan” (Kazimi, 2003, p.341). 

Several theories abound about Liaquat’s assassination some pointing to external (e.g. USSR-India) and others to internal factors. The oft-cited evidence of the former—though anecdotal—is reported to have been the clenched fist that Liaquat showed towards India—and by that token the USSR—while addressing the last Independence day meeting of life. (Kazimi, 2003, p. 314).  

Khan (2001, p.71) speculates that Liaquat, by his moderate ways, had “earned personal enmity based on religious fanaticism” which might have been a reason behind his assassination. He notes, for example, that the religious establishment had started to severely criticize his wife—Begum Ra’naa Liaquat Ali Khan who was herself an economist, an educationist, and an important figure of the Pakistan Movement—for not observing purdah. The purpose obviously was to embarrass and weaken the Prime Minister himself.

Whether there was a conspiracy in Liqauat’s assassination (and many believe that there was), however, it has never been revealed. Thus closed the chapter of Liaquat’s Prime Ministership with all its challenges and achievements—its sudden rise and remarkable fall.

Liaquat Ali Khan: The final Verdict

Keith Callard (1957) in his “Pakistan: A Political Study” says the following about Liaquat’s Premiership:

“Most of the evidence goes to show that Liaquat Ali was at first in effective control of the government, the Muslim League and the Constituent Assembly. But in the three years following Mr. Jinnah’s death he did not succeed in solving any of the five main problems of Kashmir, canal waters, evacuee property, the state of the economy and refugees. Neither was he able to procure agreement on the constitution. Inevitably a sense of frustration spread in the country, and it was no longer enough to have survived…Political opposition to the Prime Minister was not very effective, but it was growing. Above all, the provinces were getting out of hand.”

History seems to have rendered a mixed verdict on Liaquat’s reign as the first Prime Minister of Pakistan. In “Liaquat Ali Khan: His Life and Works”, his biographer Mohammad Reza Kazimi also notes the rather cold treatment meted to him by the successive governments of his own country as well. For example, he notes that October 16th 2001, his fiftieth death anniversary, passed without an official commemoration in Pakistan (Kazimi, 2003, p. 341). Criticism of his policies or administrative style aside, however, there seems to be little evidence of corruption or nepotism—qualities that would soon become the hallmark of Pakistan’s leaders—on Liaquat’s political career.

Kazimi notes, for instance, that Liaquat, as Prime Minister of Pakistan, refused to send any special car to the Indian border to receive his mother and brothers when they migrated from India insisting that they would have to come like other refugees did. He also refused to file claims for his Indian property—the palatial Gul-i-Ra’naa—where so many of All-India Muslim League Council meetings had taken place and gifted it to the new nation. The building still serves as Pakistan’s High Commission in India. (Kazimi, 2003, p. 340).

While his achievements—not the least of which was the Liaquat-Nehru Pact—are considerable, he did fail to solve several of Pakistan’s most pressing domestic problems. In doing so, however, he must be credited with managing exceedingly divergent interests in very difficult circumstances with the slimmest of coalitions of “like-minded” politicians (and bureaucrats) that had already begun to unravel in Jinnah’s time. The truth of this statement may be gauged from the fact that with Liaquat out of the picture, the political scenario in Pakistan literally exploded into chaos. We will look at that next week.

• Ideology , Inter-Provincial Relations , Foreign Policy , Liaquat Ali Khan , 1949-1951 , Religion , Politics , History in a Nutshell