In Search of Solutions Part 4

In Search of Solutions is the autobiography of leading Baloch nationalist leader Mir Ghose Baksh Bizenjo which was compiled by his political comrade B M Kutty. The Baloch Hal brings you the book chapter wise.

Beyond Baluchistan: Pakistan’s Early Years

Power struggles in the early years
Beyond Balochistan, much was happening in the corridors of power of nascent Pakistan. Opposition to the Government and the ruling Muslim League had gathered momentum and was seeking outlets in various forms. Deep schisms appeared within the ranks of the Party leadership. A tussle raged in Punjab between Chief Minister Nawab Mamdot and Mian Mumtaz Daulatana.

Prime Minister Liaquat showed a bias against Mamdot. Soon Mamdot was sacked and Daulatana replaced him as Chief Minister of Punjab.
Due to the increasing tendency in the ruling Muslim League to encourage flattery and favouritism and suppress political dissent, new political entities emerged in the 1949-50s to challenge the Party. One of them was the Jinnah Muslim League sponsored by erstwhile Muslim League stalwart of Punjab, Nawab Mamdot.

The other was Awami Muslim League formed by erstwhile top Muslim League leaders of East Bengal, Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani. Some time later, in deference to the Party’s adherence to secular principles, the word ‘Muslim’ was removed and the party’s name became Pakistan Awami League.

On 9th March 1951, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, in a sensational announcement, revealed a ‘conspiracy’ in the armed forces against the state. Several senior army officers were implicated in the conspiracy and were arrested, in addition to a large number of communists and progressive leftist intellectuals all over the country. A reign of repression was let loose against political opponents.A special tribunal was set up to try the accused in this case, which came to be known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case.
Six months later, on 16th October 1951 to be precise, Liaquat Ali Khan was shot dead as he began to address a public meeting in Rawalpindi, under circumstances which continue to be shrouded in mystery. I don’t wish to go into the details. Some major changes in top positions in the government followed Liaquat’s murder. Khawaja Nazimuddin was moved from the position of Governor General to that of Prime Minister to succeed Liaquat. Malik Ghulam Muhammad, the then Finance Minister made his way to the Governor General’s post.

Chaudhri Muhammad Ali, another top bureaucrat of the colonial era took over as Finance Minister. Nawab Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani who too had earlier been a senior bureaucrat became the Interior Minister. These three constituted a troika, which held real power after Liaquat’s death. All the three were from Punjab. That was the beginning of the rise of Punjabi civil bureaucracy.

Not before long, however, this troika would be ousted and replaced by the duo consisting of Maj. Gen. Iskandar Mirza, a loyal servant of the colonial order, and General Ayub Khan, the army chief, opening the doors for an unending series of palace intrigues, engineered government changes, floor crossings, horse-trading and a host of other political vulgarities, till the armed forces marched in and seized power in October 1958.

Mian Mumtaz Daulatana, Chief Minister of Punjab, emerged as one of the high profile political faces of Punjab’s powerful ruling elite. He had high ambitions and was an aspirant for the post of the Prime Minister. It was suspected that he played a shady role in inciting the anti-Qadiani riots in Punjab in 1953, which led to the imposition of martial law in Lahore. He reportedly wanted to embarrass Prime Minister Nazimuddin’s Central Government and pave the way for its removal. But Ghulam Mohammad had other plans.

After Nazimuddin got the annual budget passed by the Constituent Assembly and proved that he commanded the majority support in the House, Ghulam Mohammad decided not to let Nazimuddin build on that success and further consolidate his position as an ‘empowered’ Prime Minister. He dismissed the Nazimuddin government on 17th April 1953 and invited Mohammad Ali Bogra (another Bengali of course), the then Pakistan Ambassador in Washington, to come and form a new government. The Muslim League parliamentary party in the Assembly elected Bogra as its leader and Prime Minister. Ghulam Mohammad must have calculated that Bogra would be a pliable Prime Minister, beholden to him for the favour he had bestowed on him.
Ghulam Muhammad was a dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrat. Arrogant by nature – some say he was foul-mouthed too – he was least bothered about democratic norms and practices. Mohammad Ali Bogra was not a novice in politics. He had been in Muslim League’s political leadership in United Bengal and a Minister in the Government. He began to assert himself as the leader of the Muslim League parliamentary party and Prime Minister. Ghulam Mohammad came to know that Bogra was lobbying with the Assembly members to have a legislation passed to curb the powers of the Governor General. He moved swiftly to pre-empt Bogra’s plans by dismissing his cabinet and reconstituting it with a ‘tamed’ Mohammad Ali Bogra as Prime Minister on 14th November 1953.

This was the beginning of the dangerous process of arbitrarily changing the governments at will by the Governor General – be it Ghulam Mohammad or later on Iskandar Mirza – either through conspiring with certain groups of Assembly members or through blackmailing them with threats of dissolution of the Assembly. Eventually, the Ghulam Mohammad-led troika decided to do away with the ‘nuisance’ known as the Constituent Assembly. On 24th October 1954, the Governor General dissolved the Constituent Assembly, but a much-chastened Mohammad Ali Bogra was asked to continue as Prime Minister till a new Assembly was elected. As a counterweight to Bogra, General Ayub Khan, C-in-C of the army, was inducted into the new cabinet as Defence Minister!

I don’t think I need to narrate a story that everyone knows-how the Speaker Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan challenged the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, how the Sindh Chief Court nullified it and how Chief Justice Muhammad Munir of the Supreme Court justified and legitimized it, opening the way for the periodical misuse of the ‘Law of Necessity’ to legitimize the illegitimate dismissal of governments and dissolution of Assemblies, a malpractice that continues till today.

Towards formation of One Unit of West Pakistan

From day one after the Jugto (United) Front government headed by Fazlul Haq came to power in East Pakistan (1954), central agencies were at work hatching conspiracies to malign it and find excuses to dismiss it. Soon they did it and in the process, Suhrawardy-Bhashani’s Awami League and Fazlul Haq’s Krishak Sramik Party went their different ways. The Central Government now very ably played the game of divide and rule, alternately picking one or the other in the formation of governments in Dhaka and at the Centre.

Ironically, the process of the secession of East Pakistan started when Pakistan’s rulers invented the dubious East-West parity formula between the two wings of the country in conjunction with the formation of One Unit of West Pakistan. H.S. Suhrawardy, an ardent champion of democracy, was wooed into the ongoing plot with the promise that general elections could be held soon if the parity formula was accepted by East Bengal.

The power brokers and the ruling elites of Punjab were always scared of Bengalis’ numerical majority. They apprehended that Bengal could at any time endanger Punjab’s domination by joining forces with the other federeating units of West Pakistan. How to safeguard the vested interests of West Pakistan’s feudal-dominated ruling elite was the issue at stake. It was argued that East-West parity in representation, coupled with the integration of the provinces of the West wing into a single unit of West Pakistan would help to strengthen the country and contribute to greater progress and prosperity of the people of both wings.

This way, Punjab’s vested interests were in fact killing two birds with one stone. On the one hand, parity formula would put an end to Bengal’s numerical majority status. On the other, bringing the provinces of west wing under a single provincial administrative setup with its headquarters located in Lahore would prove the first step towards turning the west wing into Greater Punjab!

Another point needs to be kept in mind. The process of total identification of Pakistan with American imperialism, which started with the induction of Mohammad Ali Bogra as Prime Minister in April 1953, was reaching the point of transforming Pakistan into a client state of USA. Americans were busy coercing and cajoling the governments in Soviet Union’s peripheries to join military pacts and allow American military bases to be set up in their countries as part of their global strategy to contain the Soviet Union and the new emerging communist giant China.

All of us remember the infamous American military base at Badaber in NWFP, from where on 1st May 1960 an American U-2 plane took off for spying on Soviet Union and was shot down in Soviet territory, inviting a stern warning of severe retribution from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Slowly but steadily, public resentment against the pro-American policies was growing in the country. This was more pronounced among the politically conscious sections of the people, particularly in NWFP and Baluchistan. Under a calculated policy, indigenous small industries were being weakened to facilitate a free ride to foreign investors. This was executed through collusion with the dominant feudal lords of West Pakistan, whose interests too were to be protected. One Unit of West Pakistan was the answer.