Nadeem F. Paracha traces the evolution of Ideology of Pakistan in this exclusive piece for Naya Daur.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
August 11, 1947: During his first address in the newly-created Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly, the country’s founder, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, explains that Pakistan was to be a modern and progressive Muslim-majority country where all of its citizens (Muslim and non-Muslim) were free to practice their faiths anyway they deemed fit; and where the state – though inspired by the egalitarian notions of Islam – will have nothing to do with the matters of a citizen’s religion.
Jinnah's Funeral in karachi
September 11, 1948: Jinnah passes away. His funeral is attended by thousands of mourners. He leaves behind a powerful legacy of commitment to a cause. But his death just a year after Pakistan’s chaotic formation creates a huge void. The country doesn’t have a proper political system, national assembly, or a constitution and its head of state is still a British monarch. The Bengali-dominated East Pakistan is already accusing the Punjabi & Urdu-speaking elite of West Pakistan of undermining the Bengali majority and language.
Liaquat Ali Khan addressing the constituent assembly
March, 1949: Pakistan’s first PM Liaquat Ali Khan tables an Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly. The Resolution is authored to foretell what Pakistan’s constitution (and, in turn, national identity) would encompass. The Resolution speaks of framing a constitution that would uphold Pakistan’s sovereignty and promote tolerance and good governance. The Resolution also suggests that in the future, Pakistan was to become an ‘Islamic Republic.’ The Resolution is adopted by 21 votes. 10 votes are casted against it. The 10 votes are of the Constituent Assembly’s Hindu members. They insist that the Resolution is ‘communal’ in nature and negates Jinnah’s initial idea of Pakistani nationhood. The 21 votes in favor of the Resolution include votes by PM Liaquat and Foreign Minister Zafarullah Khan – a leading member of the Ahmadi community.
A scene from Anti-Ahamadia riots in Lahore that led to imposition of first martial law
February-May, 1953: Anti-Ahamadi riots erupt in the Punjab province. Led by a group of clerics and leaders of the Jamat-i-Islami (JI) and Majlis-i-Ahrar, protesters attack Ahamdi members and property. PM Khuwaja Nizamuddin sends in the army. 35 rioters are killed and hundreds arrested. The protesters demand that the Ahmadis be removed from state and government institutions and ousted from the fold of Islam. The government rejects the demands as the military crushes the protests. Governor General removes PM Nizamuddin and Punjab CM Mumtaz Daultana for negligence. Nizamuddin appeals to Pakistan’s (figurative) head of state, Queen Elizabeth, but to no avail. JI chief, Maulana Maududi, is sentenced to death by a military court for inciting hatred and violence against the state. But the sentence is soon overturned.
April 1954: Justice M Munir and Justice Kayani are appointed by the Governor-General to investigate the causes of the riots. In their report (published in 1954), the two men suggest that the riots were caused due to tensions between former PM Nizamuddin and former CM Punjab, Daultana. The report also mentions that Daultana might have used the religious parties to instigate violence to distract attention from his faltering government in the Punjab. The report directly accuses religious leaders, claiming that their ideas of Pakistan and Islam were contrary to those held by Jinnah. The report warns that the religious leaders wanted to form a totalitarian theocracy and should be stopped.
Constituent Assembly of Pakistan
March 23, 1956: Pakistan becomes a republic. An indirectly elected assembly drafts, tables, debates and then passes Pakistan’s first constitution. The constitution declares Pakistan an ‘Islamic Republic’ guided by the principals of democracy. The country’s first election held on the basis of adult franchise are to be held in 1958. The constitution proclaims that all citizens of Pakistan (Muslim or non-Muslim) are to be treated equally but that only a Muslim could be elected as President. The authors of the constitution insist that an ‘Islamic Republic’ was not a theocracy but a democracy inspired by the moral and social dictates of Islam.
Sikandar Mirza and Ayub khan – Two men who turned Pakistan into martial state
October, 1958: President Iskandar Mirza and military chief Ayub Khan dissolve the assembly, expel the government and abrogate the constitution through a military coup. Both men accuse the politicians and bureaucrats of corruption and of playing destructive power games. They then go on to describe the 1956 constitution as ‘an attempt to peddle Islam for political gains.’ They change the name of the country to the ‘Pakistan Republic.’ 17 days after the coup, Ayub ousts Mirza as well (who was trying to sideline Ayub).
President Ayub Khan
February, 1960: Ayub Khan is elected President through a referendum. He promises to ‘turn Pakistan into the kind of a country that Jinnah had envisioned.’ He explains this as a modern Muslim country with a strong and robust economy, a powerful military and a polity driven to advance in life with the aid of science, reason and modernity. His government decides to give Pakistan a new constitution and for this Ayub sends a lengthy questioner (titled ‘What Is the Ideology of Pakistan?’) to a number of intellectuals, scholars and historians. He also intensifies his government’s industrialization and modernization process and puts all mosques and shrines under government control.
Was Ayub Khan a progressive?
1962: With the economy booming and his own popularity at an all-time high, Ayub forms a committee to draft a new constitution. He also announces new elections based on a complex Presidential system called ‘Basic Democracies’. He lifts the ban on political parties. The constitution is activated in 1962. It officially names Pakistan as ‘Republic of Pakistan’ and enforces a Presidential form of democracy. The constitution retains some ‘Islamic clauses’ of the discarded 1956 constitution, especially the one which only allows a Muslim to be head of state. It also emphasis a highly centralized form of government controlled by a powerful federal set-up in West Pakistan. Ayub says that Islam has been distorted and dragged back by the clerics. He says that it is a progressive religion but the clerics and religious parties have turned it into becoming an impediment in the way of modern progress. Ayub’s party, the centrist Convention Muslim League, becomes the majority party after the 1962 elections. Leading opposition parties in the new assembly are the centre-right Convention Muslim League, the left-wing National Awami Party, the right-wing Jamat-i-Islami and the moderate Islamic outfit, the Nizam-i-Islam Party.
January, 1964: The Ayub government bans the right-wing Jamat-i-Islami (JI), accusing it of sedition and working against the state of Pakistan. The JI had been accusing the Ayub regime of being secular and ‘anti-Islam’. Ayub reminds the people that this was exactly what JI had said about Jinnah as well. The JI registers an appeal against the ban in the Supreme Court. The court observes that the ban is unlawful and orders the government to lift it.
Ayub khan addressing a rally
1965: Ayub is re-elected as President. He says he has finally made Pakistan the kind of modern and advanced Muslim-majority country that Jinnah had envisioned. The irony is that his opponent in the election was Ms. Fatima Jinnah, the famous sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Ms. Jinnah accused Ayub of being a dictator and anti-democracy. Ayub won over 60 percent of the vote. Ms. Jinnah, however, defeated him in Karachi (West Pakistan) and in Dhaka and Chittagong (in East Pakistan). Ms. Jinnah was the candidate of the Combined Opposition Party (COP), an alliance of the left-wing National Awami Party, the centre-right Council Muslim League, the right-wing Jamat-i-Islami, the moderate right-wing Nizam-i-Islam Party and the centre-left Bengali nationalist Awami League. A war against India in late 1965 ends in a stalemate. Opposition leaders claim that Ayub had lost the war on the negotiating table which Pakistani troops were winning on the field. Protests take place against his decision to sign a ceasefire treaty with India. The Ayub regime begins to unravel.
1968: As a widespread anti-Ayub movement spread across the country, a national public debate on the ideological complexion of Pakistan erupts. Right-wing opposition parties such as JI insist that Pakistan’s culture and national ideology should be strictly Islamic. Left-wing opposition parties such as the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and National Awami Party (NAP) say socialism and democracy should inform Pakistan’s ideology - even though parties like NAP and Awami League also suggest that the distinctiveness of the country’s many ethnic groups should contribute the most in this endeavor. The besieged Ayub regime engages famous progressive Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, to prepare a detailed report on what constitutes Pakistan’s culture. Faiz in his report suggests that Pakistan is a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic entity and a fusion of various historical cultures: South Asian, Muslim, British and modern. Faiz wrote that such a diverse culture can best be served by parliamentary democracy. He added that Islam was just one aspect of Pakistan’s culture. The report was published in 1968 but was shelved when Ayub resigned in 1969.
When ZA Bhutto captured the left wing vote of Pakistan
1972: During the 1970 election, ZA Bhutto’s left-leaning PPP had won the most seats in West Pakistan. Bhutto came to power on 20 December 1971 when East Pakistan broke due to a vicious civil war there. In 1972, President Bhutto invites a host of intellectuals and scholars to a conference to help the regime shape a new ‘Pakistan Ideology’ - especially in the light of East Pakistan’s acrimonious secession. Faiz’s 1968 report remerges and some intellectuals advise that its multicultural tenor be adopted. However, a majority of the participants at the conference believe that a more rigorous form of nationalism be adopted so that the country can be explained as a single ideological entity.
ZA Bhutto and Hafeez Pirzada – Architects of first constitution
14 August, 1973: Government and opposition draft and debate a new constitution. The constitution is passed in the National Assembly. Bhutto becomes PM after Pakistan’s political system is changed from Presidential to Parliamentary. The new constitution renames Pakistan as an ‘Islamic Republic.’ Demands by religious parties to add some sterner religious clauses are rejected by the treasury benches.
A right wing victory
May-June, 1974: A brawl between some young Ahamadis and members of the student-wing of JI triggers violent anti-Ahmadi rioting in the Punjab. The rioting turns into a violent movement led by religious parties and conservative opposition outfits. Bhutto threatens to send in the army. Rest of the country remains peaceful. The opposition demands that the Ahmadis be ousted from government posts and from the fold of Islam. Bhutto refuses to budge until some of his own MNAs and MPAs from the Punjab warn that they would support the opposition in this matter. Bhutto finally allows the religious party’s to table a bill for the ouster of Ahmadis from Islam. The bill is passed and the Ahmadis become a minority group. Backed by oil-rich Arab monarchies, the Bhutto regime begins to move to the right.
A scene from a PTV drama reinterpreting south Asian history
1976: A very narrow explanation of Pakistani nationhood begins to ingrain itself in school text books and in state-owned media. The narrative goes something like this: Pakistan is the bastion of ‘Muslim democracy’ but surrounded by hostile enemies (mainly India, Afghanistan and Russia/USSR). Pakistan’s history has deeper roots in the rise of Islam in Arabia than within South Asia. Yet, even as this ideological narrative takes hold, Bhutto still falls to the wrath of religious groups whose confidence had been bolstered from 1974 onwards. In July 1977, the Bhutto regime is toppled in a reactionary military coup led by Gen Zia-ul-Haq.
The brutal martial law of General Zia-ul-Haq
1979: After two years in power, the Zia dictatorship announces that more than just being an Islamic Republic, Pakistan was to become an ‘Islamic State.’ The regime sets up Shariat Courts; gives the superior courts the power to decide what is ‘un-Islamic; and introduces Hudood Laws against ‘adultery’, sale and consumption of alcohol, etc. All these are introduced through constitutional amendments.
1981: The country’s existential narrative in text books and state-media continues to become narrower. From supposedly being a ‘bastion of Muslim democracy’, Pakistan is now explained as ‘bastion of Islam’ itself. Armed Jihad against ‘infidels’ too is glorified in school books and in TV plays. Sunni-Shia riots erupt after the Shia community complains that radical Sunni laws were being enforced upon the Shias. Passing derogatory remarks against Islamic figures is made punishable, carrying a penalty of 3 years in jail.
The bogus referendum of General Zia-ul-Haq
1984: Zia is confirmed as President through a referendum. Voter turn-out is less than 25 percent. Zia celebrates his victory by introducing harsher anti-Ahmadi laws.
1985: Separate electorates for minorities are introduced. Minority groups can now only vote for a handful of non-Muslim candidates. This law is passed after the religious parties complain that non-religious parties win because they receive all the non-Muslim share of votes.
General zia-ul-Haq at the peak of his power - a young Nawaz sharif following his footsteps
1986: Blasphemy laws are expanded and a clause is added to the constitution making blasphemy punishable by death.
Sibt-e-Hasan – A prominent left wing intellectual
September, 1986: Progressive intellectual and author, Sibt-e-Hasan, publishes a book, Battle of Ideas in Pakistan. In it he systematically dismantles the idea and concept of the Pakistan Ideology being formed by the Zia regime. Hasan echoes Faiz’s thoughts on the subject by suggesting that Pakistan’s culture was not monolithic and reactionary but diverse, multi-dimensional and inherently progressive.
General Hamid Gul - Master of 'Jihad'
1988: Lt. General Hamid Gul – a close confidant of Gen Zia – helps form a right-wing electoral alliance, the IJI, after Zia’s demise in August 1988. The IJI is formed to challenge Benazir Bhutto’s PPP which is set to win the first post-Zia election. Gul and IJI fear that Benazir would reserve the ‘gains’ made by Pakistan during the ‘anti-Soviet Afghan jihad’ and rollback Zia’s ‘Islamization’ process. Nothing of the sort happened.
Nawaz Sharif wanted to introduce Shariah laws in his second tenure as PM
1998: The second Nawaz Sharif government (PML-N) tables and passes a 15th Amendment in the constitution which looked to enforce stricter ‘Shariah laws’ (because according to Nawaz, the ‘Islamic ideology’ of Pakistan honed during the Zia era had been eroded by the previous two Benazir Bhutto governments). Experts suggest that the amendment not only undermines the constitution itself, but was authored to turn the Nawaz government into a virtual civilian dictatorship (in the name of Islam). Though the amendment is bulldozed in the PML-N dominated national assembly, it is stalled (and then rejected) by the senate. In 1999, the Sharif regime is ousted by Gen Musharraf in a coup.
Musharraf - the 'enlightened' and 'moderate' dictator
2002: Musharraf who came to power through a coup in 1999, became President in 2002. The same year he launched his idea of Pakistan’s ideology. He called it ‘Enlightened Moderation.’ Taking inspiration from men such as Turkey’s Kamal Ataturk, Pakistan’s Ayub Khan and moderate Islamic scholars such as Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, Musharraf insisted that reactionary ideas based on distorted versions of Islam were weaved into the social and political fabric of Pakistan. He said the Pakistani society and culture were inherently moderate and that an ‘enlightened reading of Islam’ would be more suited to them. The Musharraf regime did introduce social and economic reforms, but most of his attempts to reform the more sensitive clauses in the constitution were thwarted by religious groups and by the political pragmatism of his own party, the PML-Q.
Gen Raheel Sharif who launched battle against extremists in 2014
2013: Gen Raheel is chosen as military chief by the third Nawaz Sharif government (elected in 2013). The PML-N had shifted much to the centre compared to its shift to the far-right in 1998. Gen Raheel, when he was IG of military schools, had introduced a paradigm shift in the military’s thinking. According to him Pakistan (due to an unprecedented rise in religious extremism and related terrorism) was facing a greater internal threat than an external one. His thesis also suggested that the manner in which the soldiers were being ideologically indoctrinated (ever since the 1980s), extremist groups were using similar rhetoric and symbolism, thus creating confusion in the minds of the soldiers. Gen Raheel begins to introduce this thinking within the armed forces.
Nawaz Sharif holding an all parties conference after Peshawar school attack in 2014
January, 2015: An emergency conference which includes government officials, opposition party members and the military chief is organized after terrorists attack a school in Peshawar. All those present agree that the process of holding dialogues with extremist groups has failed and an all-out military operation is to begin against them. The participants also call for drawing new anti-terrorism laws and a National Action Plan (NAP) to curb the spread of extremism in society. NAP is also supposed to help the government change the ‘old ideological narrative’ and replace it with a new (more moderate, progressive and democratic) one.
And the fight goes on - will it change the direction?
2015-2017: The military operations against extremist groups are largely successful. Even though the process of changing the narrative within the armed forces is rapid (but still on-going) the civilian regime is struggling to fully activate NAP. The old narrative of Pakistan ideology is now seen as an element that actually encouraged the radicalization of the state. Forming a new narrative has posed a challenge. Many politicians who rode to the top on the back of the old narrative are not willing to change it. Religious parties are feeling threatened by NAP because they benefited the most during the height of the old narrative in the 1980s. Civil-military tensions too are contributing in impeding the full formation of a new narrative. And last, but not the least, certain sensitive clauses and amendments added to the constitution between 1974 and 1998 can actually be used to stall many aspects of the reforms suggested in the NAP document. The military-establishment, civilian leadership and the intelligentsia are struggling to figure out how to navigate around these clauses and armaments to initiate a more convincing change of narrative. But the process is on.