I have a very functional view of the subject matter. For me it's very simple. Decades before the Muslim elite in Hindustan [meaning region coterminous to India today] knowing they were a minority felt threatened. These elites living in Lucknow, Delhi or Aligarh of United Provinces [UP] knew that their privilaged positions would be under threat once the British left.
They had began to use religion as a political tool to protect their economic interests. Thus these people ironically tended to be personally secular and progressive [they often were British educated and wore western clothes etc]
but politically they articulated religion. Thus Muslim League.
So in areas where Muslims were a
minority the Hindu threat was major motivating factor behind ML. Where Muslims were in
majority as in the region that would become present day Pakistan there was no Hindu threat and consequently very little support for ML. We can see how ML had very little support in Frontier or Punjab right till the end. In short where you
could make Pakistan [Muslim majority] there was no demand for Pakistan. Where Pakistan could
NOT be made [Hindu majority areas] there was demand for Pakistan.
This
dichotomy would be the cause of much destruction and malaise to the future Pakistan. Indeed I would suggest the schizophrenia you see in Pakistani society today is a hang over from this dichotomy. In 1940s religion in the most vulgar way was used by this ML elite to mobilize Muslim majority areas. This proved to be the 'perfect key' with Pakistan coming into existence in 1947.
in 1947 we had a Pakistan in a region where not long ago nobody wanted Pakistan ruled by a ML elite who migrated from India where ML had the support base. This mean't there was a disconnect. ML ruling elite were from India ruling over provinces which had nominal ML support. With charismatic Jinnah dead the ML found themselves ruling a people with whom they had absolutely zero traction other than the fact they were Muslim. A politician from Lucknow was not going have any grass roots support in Multan, Rawalpindi leave alone Peshawar.
However the migrant ML elite found themselves ruling a entire country. People like
@VCheng alway point fingers at the army. In my estimation the army is not the
CAUSE of Pakistan's problems but the
symptom. The cause was the disconnect in 1947 of having ML running a country over whose peoples they had very little grass roots support or base. ML's support base was the heartland of United Provinces in India which now was in India.
To put it in another way Pakistan had a ML ruling elite from India ruling a 'foreign' people with whom the only connect was Islam. You can see the CAUSE by looking at the period from 1947 to 1958. This is between
decade to 11 years that where United Provinces ML elite ruled Pakistan. What mandate did they have to rule the native people other than Islam? NON.
Compare this formative decade with India. It rolled out a constitution by 1950. It had regular elections. The ruling ML clique [almost all migrants] ruled Pakistan for over decade. They did not bother with elections. Instead they played a game of musical chairs with each other. Greed and lust for power drove them. In this entire decade they failed to give the country a proper constitution and gave up the idea of having general elections because they knew they had zero traction with the electorate.
So what do people do when they have no mandate and have commonality over those they rule other than Islam. They start using Islam. This "key" had worked in giving them Pakistan. The key now gave them a decade of power during which they lotted assets of the now left Hindu merchants and grabbed carved privilaged position within the political-economic landscape of the country which even holds today to some degree.
Compare this formative decade with Congress in India which cultivated democraxcy by having regular election - I believe India had two elections in this time after having sorted the constitution in 1950. Yet the ML clique had settled nothing but just used this period to loot.
As we move forward we can see Islam being used to legitimize the rulers via Objectives Resolution and interestingly all the garbage mullahs like Maudoodi who had opposed the idea of Pakistan being allowed entry into Pakistan from India and setting up his JI.
If Islam was one leg by which this illigitimate ML elite ruled the country the other leg increasingly was the army. Of course the end result was the army under Ayub one day woke to the fact that why were they touting for a corrupt ML elite which had zero legitimacy or mandate. It was clear to the army the ML was ruling on their back. Surely why not chuck the rider off their back and they rule themselves?
By 1958 this is exactly what the army did. Interstingly 1958 was not just the army taking over but the first time a "native force" [meaning one that was rooted in what was Pakistan and not migrated from India] had taken the state of Pakistan. The army in fact can be seen under Ayub to began the process of nativization. Examples are the capital was shifted to Rawalpindi. We all know most of the army came from the Pakhtun/Punjab tract around Rawalpindi.
Purists might cry that the army had no mandate. But the ML never had any mandate either. If ML had elections over that formative decade they could have come from platform of legitimacy. But the ML had not bothered with electons and ran the country through fiat all the while the clique was engaged in internecine war over grab of loot and plunder.
Essentially it is this dynamic that has dominated Pakistan all the way to present. Islam was injected into body politic of Pakistan in the first decade of the country under the ML clique. The infection just grew over the decades. Blaming it on Zia or Bhutto is wrong. The reacted around what was sown in the 1947-58 period. Pointing fingers at GHQ is easy. Reality is more nuanced.
@Joe Shearer @Saiyan0321
