A very interesting article
@Kaptaan.
The period between 1948-1958 has been one which I have loved to study because alot of insinuations about pakistan are linked to this period rather than to their appropriate periods and alot of insinuations which should be linked to this period are ignored.
There are two questions and an invite of discussion here.
The discussion is about what happened during the period of 1948-1958 perhaps more apt would be 1949-1958 since post kashmir war must be studied.
The two questions are
Whether the governments in power could be categorized as dictatorship?
Whether akbar khan's coup would have changed the destiny of pakistan?
Allow me to add a third one for study
Was a coup necessary or were the conditions solvable?
Be advised that these questions will gather different answers from different people. Students of history, sociology, legal studies, would all give different answers depending on whether they stand so for such answers we must try to focus on historical facts as much as possible and perhaps not answer at all and let the reader decide the answer.
I would begin with the discussion of history.
So when pakistan was formed what was the constitutional structure of the country. The British empire left the subcontinent with two countries but the two countries had a rich constitutional history and an administrative structure that requires there, to be present an interim constitution and for this framework the british held that the following shall act as the constitutional setup till the two countries formed their own constitutions.
The government of India act 1935
The independence act 1947
The british also knew that post separation there would be a need for a central legislature and thus formed that the constituent assembly shall act as the federal legislature and in a centralized system, the federal legislature was very strong and this would work with the governor general.
Pakistan saw jinnah become the first governor general. Now jinnah had basically run the muslim league for more than a decade. He was the towering figure and he knew that nobody else had any capability to be a national leader. Even liaqat could not be called a national leader. India was blessed with alot of things but the most notably and underrated was the huge pool of national leaders. Pakistan only had jinnah whereas the rest were either regional leaders or simply not interested in the pakistan project.
So when jinnah took charge as the governor general, he basically ran the show which was fine since it actually allowed for some level of stability to come to the new country. His division of duties and work, visiting each and every sector of the administration and the state itself did create an air of stability within the country. Unfortunately his was to be a short one and lost his demise, the country was orphaned. Liaqat Ali, whose was both an ambitious politician and a bit above his peers, took the reins and there we begin post kashmir war.
The quest for Pakistan had united many politicians and figures across the region and these men had focused on a single goal and stood united where they saw themselves cornered however with Pakistan made, both the threat and the goal were gone. These politicians, judges, bureaucracy all immediately went back to their petty interests and focused entirely on their self-preservation. Within this self-preservation there were those that had little to no ground roots in the now region of Pakistan. This can be exemplified with the fact that In 1946– 1947, of the twenty three members of the League Working Committee, only ten belonged to areas that became part of Pakistan.
So pakistan has been formed for 1.5 years and during this period, it has fought a war. It has fought internal dissent aka faqir of ippi, it had to consolidate it's holding and deal with princely states, migrants of epic proportions and horrors of massacres, an ill equipped army, little resources and it's last pillar stability is now dead.
The anger of Kashmir war
The military was extremely angry and felt that the politicians conduct in the war was poor and absolute shambles. The military felt that the politicians had focused entirely on impeding any military initiative fearing a full scale war. When we read the notes of Shaukat Aziz, Akbar Khan and Agha Humuyun, we witness a repeated sense of disappointment amongst the military rank as all of them felt that they were held back and were not allowed to consolidate the gains made by the Azad forces and the frontier tribesmen. Ayub Khan, whilst having nothing to do in the Kashmir war, was also disappointed in the political response. This create anger amongst the military ranks
The peace initiative was met with anger and this is highlighted most notably by the following words by Liaqat
“Sher Khan we are about to get the entire Kashmir on a platter and if you lead any offensive then I will hold you accountable for the death for every soldier.”
“Sir I will hold no offensive however please tell me when in history has any territory been given on a platter.”
The above words tell us that the army felt that the politicians had not supported the military and had held them back. You must understand that the military under the british was trained to be non-political and this was a massive tradition that they will not talk about politics at all. Politics in Mess hall was not only discouraged but a soldier speaking as such would get an earful from his commanding officer yet despite this non-political attitude, the british army thought of themselves and prided themselves on discipline. They loved the fact that they were orderly and whilst they were not political, they felt that politics was a disorderly game that was beneath them and should be left to the politicians and for soldiers, is to be orderly and disciplined. Pakistan army and the indian army inherited this tradition. Now the problem was that the question of partition was such a grand question that it did bring politics into the mind of the soldier since before 1946, the focus had been on partitioning the country, but now the army must be partitioned as well and this meant that soldiers were now being involved in politics. This was going to happen since its such a grand event. The soldiers based in india and Pakistan would be kept in their respective countries but the soldiers born in the regions yet pertaining to different religion would be given a choice. So immediately a soldier who was trained to keep his mind blank shut was immediately told that he needs to pick a country. The process of politicization began there and as steps went by politics became the talk of the mess hall and by 1950, akbar Khan, displayed how much the virus had grown. An orderly army in a disorderly country, was now politicized.
Before we go further, let me highlight that Pakistani army did not get a good deal as well. Let us first see the partitioning of the army. This is very important because we are studying how the events of 1948-1958 happened.
The run-up to partition included heated debates within the corridors of power in New Delhi. Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, the commander in-chief of the British Indian Army who had a deep association with his institution, initially favoured a joint army command for the two dominions though he recognized the impracticality of this idea and ended up suggesting a division of the army into two parts. He had early in his career served as the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Punjab Regiment (‘First First’) and developed a deep emotional attachment to the British Indian Army. After his wife left him for the British air force chief in India, many felt that he was wedded to the Indian Army. In a paper that he presented to the viceroy, he outlined the reasons for the division and its formula, with Pakistan’s entitlement to be either on the present Muslim and non-Muslim ratio in the armed forces (30-70 per cent)—or in proportion to the total population of Pakistan areas as compared to Hindustan. The latter alternative is probably fairer.’ His strategic analysis of the defence needs and issues facing Pakistan recognized the need for a huge force in the western marches, but, as his deputy chief of general staff was to note on a separate paper on the military implications of Pakistan: ‘The main enemy of Pakistan will be Hindustan [India], but we think that a concerted attack on Pakistan, sponsored by a Hindustan government is unlikely.’ Against this backdrop of debate within the higher command of the British Indian Army, Mountbatten proceeded apace with the plans for partition of British India and its army. By July 1947, the defence department was divided into Indian and Pakistani sections and further subdivided under three categories: personnel, moveable stores and equipment, and installations. As mentioned earlier, Muslims accounted for some 30 per cent of the army, with Hindus and Sikhs comprising most of the remaining force. After the war and demobilization of the 2.5 million strong British Indian Army, the total number of active soldiers numbered only 400,000, of which some 140,000 were earmarked for Pakistan. The infantry had nearly 7 Muslim regiments out of 23 (excluding the Gurkhas). Under the rules agreed to by the Joint Defence Council for the partition of the army ‘a Muslim soldier domiciled in Pakistan and a non-Muslim domiciled in the rest of India had no option but to serve his respective dominion, or be discharged. But a Muslim from India or a non-Muslim from Pakistan could elect which dominion he would serve’ after filling out a questionnaire, ‘with a subsequent entitlement to reoption.’
The division of the army took place amidst much emotional outburst, with regiments being split and trading components. Hindu or Sikh squadrons of cavalry regiments, for example, were sent to new regiments in India while Muslim counterparts were moved to Pakistani regiments. The first native commander-in-chief to-be of the Indian Army, General Cariappa, had had serious misgivings about the British departure and its aftermath and about dividing the Indian Army. He was quoted by Lord Ismay in a letter to Mountbatten as having put forward ‘the amazing suggestion that the Indian Army, with either Nehru or Jinnah as commander-in-chief, should take over power when we left in June 1948.1 [Ismay] at once said that the proposal was not only wholly impractical, but highly dangerous, and that throughout history the rule of the army had always proved tyrannical and incompetent, and that the army must always be servants and not masters.’ Farley recounts the scene at partition poignantly: ‘Men exchanged presents, sang “Auld Lang Syne”, and swore to remain friends.’ In Delhi, the Hindu and Sikh officers gave a ‘farewell comrades’ party for their Muslim counterparts. According to General Shahid Hamid, the senior Indian officer, General Cariappa, presented a silver trophy to his Pakistani counterpart and then gave a toast, predicting that: ‘We shall meet each other frequently as the best of friends and in the same spirit of good comradeship that we have had the good fortune to enjoy all these years.’ The senior Pakistani officer, A.M. Raza, replied in kind and they all linked arms and sang ‘For they are all jolly good fellows.’ ‘Three days later, four Muslim officers who had sung that night were among the 150 Pakistani officers and officials, with their families, who were hacked to death by Sikh Jathas (armed lawless gangs) who attacked the train carrying them to Pakistan.’64 Indian General Menezes quotes then Major Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan at the ‘break up’ party at the Staff College in Quetta as saying to Colonel S.D. Varma, the chief instructor: ‘Sir! What are we celebrating? This should be a day of mourning. As a united country, we could have been a strong and powerful nation. Now we will be fighting one another.’
Since most of these fixed assets resided in what was to become India, Pakistan was at a severe disadvantage. It had to start almost from scratch: setting up a new capital in Karachi and a new military headquarter in Rawalpindi, at the site of what was till then the headquarter of the British Indian Army’s northern command from where operations in the tribal areas were directed. An interesting counterpoint to this situation on the Indian side is provided by Lt. Gen. L.P. ‘Bogey’ Sen’s view that the ‘rmy Headquarter, India, was in a very unhappy state. While Pakistan had established itself in the well-equipped Northern Command Headquarters in Rawalpindi and was able to commence functioning without impediment, its analogue in New Delhi found itself engaged in an accommodation-cum location battle with Supreme Headquarters’ Additionally, Sen believed that the Muslim director of the civilian Intelligence Bureau had spirited away all valuable files to Pakistan. The road to independence for the Pakistan Army was fraught with great difficulty. It lacked officers, especially those with command experience, and was faced with the huge task of transport of personnel and assets from India. At the time of independence, the British Indian Army was still proceeding with its planned demobilization of forces after the Second World War, with the aim of reducing its strength of emergency commissioned officers from some 8,000 to around 450. A series of selection boards was constituted to assess the individual officers who had been commissioned during the Second World War to decide on who ought to be given regular commissions. Among the officers selected to head these boards was Colonel Ayub Khan. On 14 August 1947, Pakistan not only came into being as a ‘moth-eaten’ political entity, but it also came with a ‘moth-eaten’ military which was under the firm command and control of the British officers who chose to remain ostensibly under Pakistan control, (notwithstanding the secret ‘stand down order of the supreme commander). Out of the 46 training establishments that existed in pre-partition India, only 7 were in Pakistan. These included the Staff College in Quetta, the School of Military Intelligence and the Anti aircraft Artillery School, both in Karachi, the Royal Indian Army Service Corps (RIASC) School in Kakul, the No. 1 RIASC Training Centre (Supplies) in Lahore, the Armament Artificer Wing of the Indian Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Corps in Chaklala (near Rawalpindi), and the Military Farms Department Training Centre in Lahore. Certainly not an adequate framework for the creation and sustenance of a fledgling army!
The Pakistan Defence Council at its second meeting on 2 and 3 October 1947 agreed to set up the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, which was to start operations in January 1948. The first commandant of PMA was Colonel F.H.B. Ingall of the 6th Lancers. His main deputies were Lieutenant Colonel M.A. Latif as battalion commander and Lieutenant Colonel Atiqur Rehman as chief instructor. The first trainees were from the group of Muslim officer cadets from the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun who were flown to Lahore in October 1947. In this group were members of the second and third post-war IMA courses. Members of the second course were immediately given commission in the Pakistan Army. The members of the third course were temporarily parked with units and then joined the PMA when it began functioning out of the former Army Service Corps School premises. By 26 February 1948, when the PMA actually began its operations, it included some 66 IMA/PMA cadets, 63 university graduates who were members of the First Special Course and 78 cadets of the First PMA Long Course.9 A key training establishment that came into Pakistan’s share at partition was the celebrated Staff College at Quetta. It was closed down in September 1947 when the non-Muslim staff members left, but it was re-opened on 2 February 1948 under the British Brigadier J.C.A. Lauder.10 Of the pre-partition instructors of the Staff College, Lt. Col. A.M. Yahya Khan remained. Others who joined him when the college re-opened were Lt. Col. Akhtar Hussain Malik and Lt. Col. Gul Mawaz Khan, the latter a highly decorated officer during the Second World War when he gained the Military Cross, and the former destined for military fame and high decorations in the 1965 Indo-Pak War. The logistical foundations of the Pakistan Army were severely short changed by the division of assets at partition. The three key command workshops of the British Indian army that helped maintain armoured fighting vehicles, radar repairs, and crystal cutting, were all left in India, at Secunderabad, Kirkee, and Agra. Of the 40 ordnance depots, only 5 small retail depots were located in Pakistan. The major depots were situated on the main supply routes which were providing support to the army during the war in South East Asia, with major stocks of material kept in the major ports such as Bombay, Madras or Calcutta or in ancillary depots inland in southern India. The depots in Pakistan had a minimal stock. Similarly, there were twelve engineer stores depots in British India, of which only three small depots came to Pakistan. Even the munitions industry that was expanded during the Second World War came to reside primarily in India, with only 3 of the 17 ordnance factories located in Pakistan.12 In short, even with the greatest willpower and determination of its fighting forces, Pakistan began life with a weak logistical infrastructure and serious dependence on Indian goodwill to transfer assets to it yet despite these difficulties, the army immediately became the most orderly institution in the country and this helped built the pride the military had that they could solve problems and put the country on the right path. They saw that both politicians and military had been dealt with a bad hand but the military had handled it however the politicians were all over the place!
Liaqat came to the scene and he first appointed Khaja nazimuddin to the post of governor general, a softspoken man and moulvi tamizzuddin, another Bengali politician as the president of the constituent assembly however by 1949, the political class was fracturing and the muslim league found it very difficult to transition from a movement into a ruling party over a region where it held the weakest support. Muslim league was extremely strong in East Pakistan but in West Pakistan it was weak, yet the party focused so much in West Pakistan that by 1953, it had completely lost its own based ground. The first crisis came as Mumtaz Daulatana, khan of mamdoot and sikander hayat all started to fight and play politics. Both Daultana and hayat quite the coalition in Punjab and khan of mamdoot failed to hold together the coalition and thus Punjab assembly fell. Abdul Qayoom Khan and Bacha Khan were fighting as the autocratic and despotic style of qayoom made sure that NWFP was always lit. Frequent clashes with the khudai khidmatgars and Qayoom khan, wanting toi remove all opposition, held nothing back and his condoning of jobbery, bribery and nepotism angered jinnah as well and he cracked down on him but after his death, Qayoom was unstoppable. In Sindh the powerful and corrupt Khuhro had frequent clashes with the governor general of Sindh habitullah and this led to Jinnah removing Khuhro especially after the rising calls of nepotism, brutality and corruption and of such scale that an entire commission was made whose findings were shocking however with the death of Jinnah, khuhro found a moment and got himself elected as the muslim league president of Sindh whilst the investigation was ongoing. This led to the famous promulgation of law he Public and Representatives Offices (Disqualification) Act, or PRODA, which disqualified a person from politics if they had been found guilty of misconduct. This was the first of many such acts that subsequent governments used to eliminate troublesome opponents. But Khuhro’s departure did not mean the end of troubles in Sindh, as his successor Ilahi Bux was also removed shortly after assuming office and succeeded by Yusuf Haroon. The political sniping continued, enough to provoke governors rule in Sindh as well. Balochistan continued to be ruled from the centre, thus papering over whatever dissension lingered there.
The above would tell you the chaos the country was heading to. Jinnah was keeping a lid on it, as much as he could, but his death brought forth chaos and Liaqat did not have the skills for this. During this period the army was building itself in an orderly manner as an efficient force.
The only province that had any semblance of normal political activity was East Pakistan, though even there the rumblings of discord were being heard. Khwaja Nazimuddin had been succeeded by Nurul Amin in the province as chief minister, who was able to maintain things on an even keel though a number of major figures (Maulana Bhashani, among them) jumped into the opposition. And Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy returned from exile in Calcutta to join the ranks of the opposition not only in East Pakistan but also as part of a broader coalition that drew Mamdot and others in West Pakistan. In brief, the Muslim League was unravelling. As Muhammad Ali commented on its membership: The pillars of society, the landlords, the well-to-do lawyers, the rich businessmen, and the titled gentry, were its main support. With some exceptions, they were not men noted for their total commitment to any cause. Their willingness to sacrifice their personal interests or comfort for the sake of the nation was often in doubt, and not unjustly. Jinnah had managed to draw into the fold the masses and the middle class in the struggle for freedom but once Pakistan was achieved, the ruling cliques of the League fell back into its old ways, and factionalism ruled the day. Provincial leaders paid little heed to the needs of the nation as a whole, becoming warlords who negotiated with the central command to gain benefits for themselves and their cohorts.
In 1950, there were still major problems in the military and one of them was that there was a dearth of officers at a higher command level and to combat this, quick promotions were handed out. This meant that soldiers who had political leanings were now young, ambitious and extremely powerful with command of a strong army. Let me give you a measure. Akbar Khan was made Major General and Chief of General Staff in 1950 and he was born in 1912 and years of service were since 1934. So he was made a commander of an army at the age of 38 with a military years of 16 years and in comparison Bajwa was made major general at the age of 53 with a service record of 35 years. You see the quick pace here.
Now let’s see the first question? Would Akbar Khan been able to change the trajectory of the country if his coup was successful? Frankly no. We would have still gotten the doctrine of necessity and the Objectives resolution as well since his coup was busted in 1951 and objectives resolution came in 1949 and Akbar would have followed the same trajectory of trying to bring in new loyal politicians, write a constitution that made him king and declare democracy not for Pakistan. Akbar disliked politicians and there is no indication that he would have made Pakistan less Islamic. Ayub was not an Islamic leader. Both Liaqat and Ayub hated mullahs and held that Islam cant be given to the Mullahs. They are the pioneers of the concept that Islamic interpretation should solely remain with the state in Pakistan and both openly declared that there is no clergy in Islam and the Mullah is only here to wreak havoc. I don’t see any difference in trajectory apart from two.
By 1951, Ayub was powerful. He had the ear of Liaqat, he had built great ties with the US and was considered as the go to man for any visit to the US and his constant attempts to gain US support for the building of the army made him one of the most loved figures in the army. Couple this with the fact that Ayub was surrounding the army with his men, Akbar’s coup would have failed or would have created massive infighting or would have resulted in a counter coup by Ayub. Ayub was loved by the Army and loved by the US. Out of the three As that run the country, two are on record on favoring him. Infact such was his influence that the other military commands also followed him and later on, he would be on record stating to his officers and soldiers that they should focus on the military and leave the politics to him. This was in 1951! Liaqat loved him and he is said to be the one who told liaqat that as CGS, Akbar should be kept in GHQ and not allowed to command a division which was his prerogative as the CGS.
The manipulation of Ghulam Muhammad
In 1951, liaqat was assassinated and khawaj nazimuddin was made prime minister of Pakistan and he forwarded the appointment of Ghulam Muhammad. This is where the dictatorship had begun. The man was dictatorial by nature and by this time both Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan were rising in power but Ghulam Muhammad, was not interested in any democracy nor did he tolerate any person taking a stand against him. His period would start from 1951 and end in 1955 and these four years were horrific for Pakistan since some of the worst political messes in the country came from this man and while Iskander and Ayub were involved with liaqat but it would be this period where they would become dictators and would truly be introduced to a political mess. So lets begin here
