The problems Pakistan has faced over time.
Here they are in brief:
1-The population explosion.
2-Education and health care.
3-Unemployment.
4-Water and Electricity.
5-Public works.
6-Discrimination against ‘other’ sects, non-Muslims, ethnicities.
7-Fully 75% of the budget goes to Defense’ and interest on loans.
8-Early Blunders.
9-The Genesis of the Evil Quad.
-Population Explosion-Again from 35 million to 220 million in seventy one years.
The terrible birth rate can not be controlled much less reversed. Mullahs assert Islam does not allow family planning though Iran offers methology, training and incentives. It is not because they follow Shia theology; in the matter Shia and Sunni are the same. Iran’s thought process is rational and practical. Though healthcare standards have gone down, with antibiotics and other medicines, mortality rate would not rise to that in early twentieth C.C.E.
At this rate Pakistan’s population by 2050 could rise to 400 plus million.
-Education, Health Care-All Pakistan has been able to do is start many more Medical Colleges, with increasing lower standards and falling standards in the ones Pakistan inherited; KE and Dow. There is an ‘Islamic’ Medical College in Hyderabad Sindh in which one just has to pay the fee for five years to get an MBBS degree. The Agha Khan Medical is the only exception among the hundreds of Medical Colleges/Universities. Numerous universities, technical institutes of all kinds have sprouted with the same poverty of standards.
In New York city alone there are hundreds of MBBS degree holders who do odd jobs, because they have not been able to pass the required US exams.
-Unemployment-When I was in the University of Karachi in the middle 1950s, nearly three quarters of the students had a partime job in government services. Now if their family can not pay the fee and expenses they have to take menial jobs.
-Water and Electricity-I lived in Lalukhet, Karachi (Liaquatabad now) in the 1950s. There was no water supply, but tankers used to bring water nearly every morning. I lived in North
Nazimabad, Karachi in the 1980s. Water supply was scarce, you had to buy water from the Army owned Tankers (till an MQM Wallah moved to our area and we had plenty of water in MQM haydays).
Electricity disappears particularly in the hot summers. Even if one had a generator, it would be tough to find petrol to run it.
Water is in acute shortage. Measures to save rain water have not been taken-there are floods, canals have become shallow; no measures have been taken to dig out the mud and trash from them. Trees are a great mechanism to save water and atmosphere. When I lived in Quetta and Karachi from the early nineteen fifties to mid sixties, Ziarat, 70 or so miles from Quetta, used to be lush green with all the hills and valleys covered with beautiful trees. One tree was reported to be 5,000 years old. When I went back to Pakistan in the early nineteen eighties, Ziarat had lost most of its trees including the 5,000 years old.
The rest of Pakistan has suffered the same desolation and spoil.
-Public Works-They are hardly more than on paper; corruption, bribery and embezzlement are possibly the worst in Public Works than in the whole country. A friend’s nephew became an Assistant PWD (Public Works Department) Engineer in a district. He accepted the usual cut from contractors. His assistant one day said to him, “Sahib, I am tired of accepting small bribes”. The Assistant asked for suggestions.The assistant said let us propose building a ten mile long canal. The Asst Engineer proposed it. It was accepted. Funds arrived. The assistant said, “Sahib, let us get one mile dug,” It was and was inspected and passed. The next Asst Engineer to be posted was very upset. The assistant said please propose the canal is not in the proper place. It should be closed. It was done and money arrived. The third appointee wanted his share. The assistant said, “Sahib, the closure was wrong. Please propose re-digging”. So it went on- not a meter was dug but every new appointee made money.
-Discrimination-Recently a highly qualified person was removed from his job by the IK government. Mohajirs (refugees from India and their descendants) are on the lowest rung, Baluchis are about the same, Sindhis Pashtuns come next to South Punjabis; guess who is on the top in the central government. When the Baluchis took over in Balochistan, they removed nearly all Punjabis officials and one Punjabi family who had been ‘Achar’ (pickle) makers in Quetta since the mid nineteenth century were forced out of town.
-Budget-Over 50% goes to the armed forces and over 25% to interest on foreign loans. The armed forces own the biggest business and industry enterprises in the country. Following is the list:
List of the armed forces owned Companies:
-Two stud farms in Pakpattan and Okara
-Army Welfare Sugar Mills, Badin
-Askari Project (shoe and woollen), Lahore
-Army Welfare Mess and Blue Lagoon Restaurant, Rawalpindi
-Real estate comprising three housing schemes in Lahore, Badaber and Sangjani
-Askari General Insurance Co Ltd Rawalpindi
-Askari Aviation Services, Rawalpindi
-MAL Pakistan Ltd Karachi
-Askari Guards (Pvt) Ltd, head office (HO) in Rawalpindi.
-Askari Fuels (CNG) with HO in Rawalpindi
-Askari Seeds, Okara
-Askari Enterprises, Rawalpindi
-Fauji Security Services (acquired from Fauji Foundation), HO in Rawalpindi
-Askari Apparel, Lahore
-Askari Lagoon, Faisalabad.
-Fauji Cereals
-Foundation Gas
-Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd
-Fauji Cement Co Ltd
-Fauji Oil Terminal and Distillery Co Ltd
-Fauji Kabirwala Power Company Ltd
-Foundation Power Co (Daharki) Ltd
-Askari Cement Ltd
-Askari Bank Ltd
-Foundation Wind Energy (I and II) Ltd
-Noon Pakistan Ltd Lahore
-Fauji Meat Ltd
-Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim Ltd
-Fauji Akbar Portia Marine Terminal Ltd, HO in Karachi.
-Shaheen Airport Services
-Shaheen Aerotraders
-Shaheen Knitwear
-Shaheen Complex, Karachi
-Shaheen Complex, Lahore
-Shaheen Medical Services
-Hawk Advertising
-Fazaia Welfare Education School System
-SAPS Aviation College
-Air Eagle Aviation Academy
-Shaheen Welfare Housing Scheme, Peshawar.
-Huge Defense Housing Societies in all large cities all over the country.
Most of the international loans were imposed on Pakistan for projects Pakistan did not need and were failures, rulers who got a cutback.
Early Blunders-
Jinnah looked the other way while ‘Tribals’ armed by the army with ‘out of uniform’ Pakistani soldiers raided Kashmir. They did not face resistance and got to the outskirts of Srinagar. There, instead of capturing the airport, they started looting the Bazaars. The Raja of Kashmir begged India to help. Mountbatten advised Nehru to demand accession to India. The Raja agreed. The land access from India was impassable due to winter snow. India sent its army on airplanes. Pakistanis were driven back. Nehru, in a not very bright move, went to the UN Security Council, which mandated a Cease Fire, withdrawal of the Pakistani forces and then a plebiscite. Pakistan did not withdraw. The situation remains the same to this day.
Jinnah’s choice of Liaquat as the first PM, instead of Suhrawardy (was a brilliant administrator who when the British Home Minister overruled the Chief Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin, directed the Chief Secretary to brung the files to him and made him sign the relevant orders I am quoting Qudra U. Shahab) and had been the chief minister of Bengal before independence and certainly the worse blunder-imposition of Urdu as the official and national language, were gross political blunders, only he could get away with.
The Evil Quad-The Genesis of the Evil Quad-
In order to maintain coherence, I am submitting the following:
The Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, after Jinnah died in 1948, chose a Bengali Nawab as the Governor General. Liaquat was not in full control as Jinnah had been and tried to placate the public by offering a resolution in the Constitution Assembly which declared Pakistan an Islamic state, in clear repudiation of what Jinnah had declared that regardless of religion and other factors, all Pakistanis would enjoy the same rights. Then he ‘discovered’ the Pindi conspiracy which was supposed to overthrow the civilian government. He was about to make a public speech on the matter when he was murdered in 1951-Ghulam Muhammad, finance minister and a senior bureaucrat in Colonial India became the Governor General (G.G). and Nazimuddin, the G.G became the prime minister.
Law and Order situations were created. Mullahs who had opposed Pakistan raised their heads (the Anti-Qadiani movement), Nazimuddin was dismissed, the Constituent Assembly dissolved (the Supreme Court validated the measure). Prime ministers were appointed and dismissed at the whim of the G.G (one was a total unknown Muhmmad Ali Bogra, whose high accomplishment as P.M was driving a Railway Engine). The provinces of West Pakistan were united into One Unit and East Pakistanis coerced to accept parity with the West.
Elections were announced for January 1959.
Suharwardy addressed huge crowds in East Pakistan and even in Punjab and Qayyum Khan launched a procession from Peshawar to Karachi.
The ruling junta felt apprehensive that the members from East Pakistan would join hands with those from Sind, NWFP and Balochistan and overturn the junta.
Iskander Mirza who had succeeded Ghulam Muhammad as GG handed over the government to Ayub Khan, the Commander in Chief of tharmy.
Ayub banned all political parties and student unions, and took over the press. He sold water resources to India.
His son, Gohar Ayub with his father in law, another army general, became owners of the huge Ghandhara industries overnight.
Ayub inducted Basic Democracy, with just 80,000 on the voter list. The number could be easily controlled by the establishment.
Bhashani persuaded Miss Jinnah to contest the election against him.The whole people, from Peshawar to Chittagong rose for her.
The army and bureaucrats forced Basic Democrats to vote for Ayub so Miss Jinnah won only in Dacca and Karachi.
Gohar perpetrated a reign of terror in Karachi. Hundreds were killed (I was a surgical resident in the Civil Hospital, Karachi and witnessed the victims of the atrocities with my own eyes).
The 1965 war with India which Bhutto goaded Ayub to recover from the despised 1964 elections, was his undoing. The army not only failed to advance to Delhi, but nearly lost Lahore. Ayub had to bow down to the Soviet PM, Kosygin and accept a humiliating deal with India.
There were immense protests.
Flouting his own Constitution, he handed over the government to the army chief, and not to the constitutionally entitled Speaker of the Parliament, or as some observers would have it, was forced by the top brass to hand over the Presidency to the army chief Yahya Khan.
The Supreme Court, as usual, approved.
Yahya re-imposed martial law and assumed the combined offices of the President and Chief Martial Law administrator (CMLA). He made the usual noises that he had agreed to take over the government to save the country from impending disaster, as was his bounden duty as a patriot and an officer, abrogated the constitution, and dissolved one unit.1 He further promised to hold free and fair elections based on adult franchise, one-person one vote. People listened to him with scarcely disguised disbelief. It was déjà vu from Ayub’s first broadcast. Contrary to expectations,
Yahya proceeded on the correct lines. He dissolved the one unit, and announced restoration of the majority of seats to East Pakistan in the central assembly
Calm was restored pretty soon. Politicians went about organizing their parties and geared them for an election campaign. People were cautiously hopeful. There was certainly no presentiment of impending doom.
Credit must be given where due. For all his faults, Yahya was, till then, the only ruler of Pakistan who kept his word to hold free and fair elections. He promulgated necessary ordinances empowering the Census Board to prepare a voter list, the Election Commission to get ready for elections and lifted the freeze on political activities. He consulted leaders of political parties, exhorting them to assist and cooperate with the electoral machinery. In brief, he took all the correct and pertinent steps, including admonition to the police and bureaucrats to be impartial and to show no favor.
Political parties went into a frenzy of campaigning. Mujib offered his now famous or infamous, depending upon one’s point of view, six points which were a thinly disguised plan of con-federal government. Bhutto gave a catchy slogan of Roti, Kapra aur Makan, roughly translated bread, clothes and home. He also pledged nationalization of industries and radical land reforms.
After school and college education in Bombay, Bhutto had gone to Oxford in England for a law degree. He subsequently studied at the Berkeley Campus of the University of California and returned to Pakistan in the mid-1950s. He obtained an appointment as a lecturer at the Law School in Karachi. Family money and connections helped him with a private office and a lucrative retainer ship with the family shipping business of Ardeshir Cowasjee, a well known columnist and activist, who belongs to a tiny but well-knit Parsi community in India and Pakistan. 2 The job of legal counsel to the shipping concern of the Cowasjee family persuaded Iskander Mirza, the then President of Pakistan, to name him the leader of the country’s delegation to a maritime conference in Geneva.
Bhutto sent Mirza an absolutely slavish letter, difficult to emulate even in a country awash with toadies and sycophants, predicting that when the history of Pakistan was written, the latter’s name will figure perhaps even more prominently than Jinnah’s!
In the NWFP, successors of the Khan Brothers had regained legitimacy. Before the advent of Martial law, the older brother popularly known as Dr. Khan Sahib had served as a Chief Minister of the unified province of West Pakistan, called one unit. They had joined the National Awami party (NAP) led by Maulana Bhashani, also known as the Red Mullah because of his egalitarian-leftist views.
1. All the provinces of West Pakistan were merged into one unit to justify equal number of seats of the West and the East in the central assembly.
2. Iranians, who did not convert to Islam fled to India and are called Parsis, a distortion of the noun Farsi for Faras, another name for Iran. The Qur’an, along with Christians, Jews and Sabians, calls them People of the Book. Muslim men but not women may marry a person of the Book without first converting them.
Bio:
I was born in Dewa Sharif, UP, India in 1939.
I went to school from the fourth to eighth class in Gonda, UP and the 9th grade in Jhansi, UP, India.
We moved to Quetta, Pakistan and went to school for the 10th grade and intermediate college in the same town.
I was in Karachi University 1954-57, then Dow Medical College 1957-62. I Was in the National Students Federation from 1954 to 1962, trained in surgery in the Civil Hospital Karachi 1962-65, proceeded to England 1965 and trained in General surgery and orthopedic surgery till 73, when I left for Canada 1973-74, USA 1974-83, back to Karachi 1983 and built a hospital and went back to the USA in 1991, been in the USA since.
I retired from surgery in 2005.
I have worked in various HR and Socialist groups in the USA.
I have Published two books ,:”A Medical Doctor Examines Life on Three Continents,” and ,”God, Government and Globalization”, and am working on the third one, “An Analysis of the Sources and Derivation of Religions”.
GET COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
