Pakistan — a political experimental station

Contributing Editor Vice Adm (Retd) IF QUADIR feels we use Pakistan as a laboratory for politics.

Politics was in fact another name for the art or science of administration. And the scarlet ribbon that threaded Pakistan’s fifty years checkered history has been the continuity of experiments on how best to administer the country and its star-crossed people. So regular and determined have been these efforts at new experiments that were a stable system to ever materialize, Pakistani people accustomed to regularity of instant drastic changes would understandably be surprised and worried as if something had gone awry. They would certainly have reason to wonder whether slumber had overtaken our imposed or self-imposed leaders or whether the erstwhile frontrunners had lost the zest to save the nation from exploiters cum tyrants in the saddle. That being the apparent pre-determined destiny of the country and its people, who were neither ready nor willing nor allowed asserting themselves, the organized elements of our society though miniscule in number, took over the reigns of power in regular succession.

The history of experimentation in Pakistan was as old as the country itself. It started with the financial wizard turned administrator Ghulam Muhammad, who during fading years of British raj in India, having won their confidence, acted as their agent supervising the affairs of Nizam of Hyderabad. GM also had so impressed the Quaid-e-Azam that on independence he was picked up as his most trusted finance minister. GM was eminently qualified to sort out monetary problems of the new born state hemmed in with shortage of finances and a financial cum commercial system that needed to be structured. The departure of all Hindus and Sikhs to India who had run the financial and economic system of all the provinces that formed part of Pakistan had left the new country in financial and economic shambles. However, while in Hyderabad, GM had well perfected the art of political scheming such that it seemed to have become a part and parcel of his personality. Thus, from the very beginning of independent Pakistan one often heard of how GM as finance minister played on bureaucratic strings to gather information from other ministries that was not made available to concerned ministers themselves. He then used that information at cabinet meetings to the latter’s disadvantage and to gain further confidence of the Quaid.

In the fifties also one heard, whether right or wrong, of bureaucracy being frequently used by GM and the Secretary General to sow discord amongst federal ministers and between political leaders, particularly between those of the two wings of Pakistan. It seems Ghulam Mohammad did not even spare the foreign minister Ch. Zafrullah Khan. According to extracts of released State Department documents on US-Pakistan relations by KM Arif, as early as in September 1947, the finance minister Ghulam Muhammad began (private?) discussions with the US Charge

d’ Affaires in Karachi on a possible 2 billion dollar US defence cum economic aid package to build up Pakistan against any Soviet warm water drive. These talks with senior US diplomatic representatives, seemingly behind government’s back, continued even after he had been appointed the Governor General. Finally in 1953; with Ayub Khan, Chowdhry Mohammad Ali and Iskander Mirza on his side; he overthrew the elected Prime Minister who only a few days earlier had got the annual budget passed with a comfortable majority. The head of Pakistan’s judiciary donned legal cover on this overthrow though later in his biography he regretted that decision. However, in the process of overthrow, GM had set in motion a train that almost half a century later was still ploughing full speed ahead with experimentation of the country’s system of administration under the benign eye of the judiciary.

With GM at full go, democracy and federalism became a needed facade for the West to accept Pakistan in their fold. Under him, governments changed at the drop of a hat and politics became an unbridled symbol of opportunism. The strings of power also fell increasingly under the control of federal, provincial and district civil servants. Under Iskander Mirza the successor to GM, one of the ablest and most promising Political Officer under the British, practically all powers of administration that had been granted to elected representatives under the 1935 Act and later, were gradually transferred to government officials. The politicians but for a few became the kat putlies (marionettes / hand maidens) of the administration that had by then become the ‘Establishment’ running the country. However, certain developments resulting from US military and economic assistance to the country from 1954 onwards were such that the Establishment was unable to cope with them and it had to draw on assistance of the Army. These developments included new muscles for the post-partition highly denuded army and more than that the direct access it gave GHQ to Washington’s political circles via the Pentagon, which both sides exploited fully. Furthermore, United States’ greater reliance on Military Intelligence for domestic intelligence than on Intelligence Bureau provided GHQ the opportunity to have its own files of internal political nature.

However, the greatest challenge to the Establishment resulted from economic development under the US Aid Programme. Better financial resources of the people generated higher political and social aspirations amongst them, which the Establishment was unwilling to countenance. This pressure resulted in latter’s increased dependence on the Army for ensuring smooth running of civilian affairs. Operation Closed Door during the fifties, to stop smuggling to and from East Pakistan, provided Army the first taste of civilian working system and its vulnerabilities. The Establishment’s effort to smother implementation of the 1956 Constitution that politicians had somehow managed to cobble together and, which was to restore power to nation’s elected representatives at the Establishment’s cost, proved to be the last straw that broke people’s patience with a civilian government. That in 1958, provided Ayub the opportunity and excuse to take over the country rather than remain the crutches for the Establishment.

As a young naval officer I remember Ayub Khan lecturing officers in the Fleet Club at Karachi in 1958/59. He spoke about the dire state of economy, the poor state of law and order situation throughout the country and the inaptitude of politicians. General Ayub literally pleaded to be given ten to twelve years to put the country on even keel and on the road to progress. He was quite firm that (full-fledged) democracy was not the solution to this country’s administration. However, later when the intended introduction of Basic Democracy was discussed by the then Navy Chief at a navy commanding officers’ meeting, some felt that I as the junior most commanding officer was crazy enough to suggest that either there was democracy or there was not. To my mind there was no such thing as Basic Democracy, particularly when the fundamental rights of free speech and association etc were to be curtailed. After the meeting a senior officer even advised me to keep my bag and baggage ready. But for the sake of history I must add that the Navy Chief was made of sterner stuff and a few years later gave me command of a destroyer, the highest aim at that time of a young naval officer, at a much younger age than normal and while many officers senior to me were waiting in the line.

Ayub commenced his mission with much gusto but by the time the proclaimed Decade of Development and Progress was ended by another Martial Law, he was not only physically and mentally exhausted but he had given the country a culture of living beyond its means, of consumerism and of ‘lotacracy’ as state craft. Many feel that in his search for a new administrative structure to suit the psyche of Pakistani people he had also sowed the seeds of separation of the two wings of the country. After him, Yahya and for that matter Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mujeeb ur Rehman proved too naive for the wiles of the Army Junta that ruled from behind the facade of Yahya Khan. The Establishment at that time could be described as three senior army officers and two high ranking civil service officers. Their aim or vision for the country remains obscure to this day but their reign ended in separation of the two wings and a bad dream for a proud race. It also shattered Ayub and Yahya’s reverie for an elected government of selected people operating under the benign eyes of the Establishment constituted by army, civil service officers and a pliant judiciary.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a man consumed with visions of an Islamic Ummah in which Pakistan by reasons of its technological and administrative prowess would play an important role. I feel the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and the Shahinshah of Iran also shared a similar prospect at that time. But in his hurry to beat the noose that was being tightened by the West on any country acquiring nuclear or missile capabilities except India, ZAB became impatient. Criticism, especially by people who he felt displayed little or no vision, and constraints under the very constitution that he had managed to get passed unanimously, led him towards intolerance. His appreciation of go-getters and penchant for go getting himself led to rapid-fire changes in the Constitution and the national administrative structure. Consequently, the country never got the stability that would have given the 1973 Constitution an opportunity to ripen and provide the highly intelligent and industrious people of this country a chance to prove their mettle in every field and which they always displayed as migrants abroad. The Zia era and the two stints each by Benazir and Nawaz Sharif were too recent a history and well-known to all. However, it could be safely stated that in their ‘missionary’ zeal these three have left a legacy of greater administrative and political confusion, immense national debt — domestic as well as foreign, and a system of administration for the rich, by the rich riding the backs of an increasingly indigent population. To put matters right the present regime of General Musharraf has been forced to carry out another major surgery of the administrative structure of the country to ensure it represented the will of the people, was in consonance with their ethos and in final analysis was workable and productive. There was no reason why this exercise should not provide beneficial results and stability to the country in the coming years, especially if extraneous or personal considerations did not impair the process as had been the case with past regimes. History would then be bound to repeat itself if our leaders refuse to learn from the country’s past.