Political decline and bureaucratic ascendancy

Nazimuddin assumed the premiership on Liaquat’s death, and Ghulam Muhammad took his place as the governor-general. Ghulam Muhammad, a Punjabi, had been Jinnah’s choice to serve as Pakistan’s first finance minister and was an old and successful civil servant. The juxtaposition of these two very different personalities—Nazimuddin, known for his piety and reserved nature, and Ghulam Muhammad, a staunch advocate of strong, efficient administration—was hardly fortuitous. Nazimuddin’s assumption of the office of prime minister meant the country would have a weak head of government, and, with Ghulam Muhammad as governor-general, a strong head of state. Pakistan’s viceregal tradition was again in play.

In 1953 riots erupted in the Punjab, supposedly over a demand by militant Muslim groups that the Aḥmadiyyah sect be declared non-Muslim and that all members of the sect holding public office be dismissed. (Special attention was directed at Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, an Aḥmadiyyah and Pakistan’s first foreign minister.) Nazimuddin was held responsible for the disorder, especially for his inability to quell it, and Ghulam Muhammad took the opportunity to dismiss the prime minister and his government. Although another Bengali, Muhammad Ali Bogra, replaced Nazimuddin, there was no ignoring the fact that the viceregal tradition was continuing to dominate Pakistani political life and that Ghulam Muhammad, a bureaucrat and never truly a politician, with others like him, controlled Pakistan’s destiny.

Meanwhile, in East Bengal (East Pakistan), considerable opposition had developed against the Muslim League, which had managed the province since independence. This tension was capped in 1952 by a series of riots that sprang from a Muslim League attempt to make Urdu the only national language of Pakistan, although Bengali—the predominant language of the eastern sector—was spoken by a larger proportion of Pakistan’s population. The language riots galvanized the Bengalis, and they rallied behind their more indigenous parties to thwart what they argued was an effort by the West Pakistanis, notably the Punjabis, to transform East Bengal into a distant “colony.”

With a Punjabi bureaucratic elite in firm control of the central government, in March 1954 the last in a series of provincial elections was held in East Bengal. The contest was between the Muslim League government and a “United Front” of parties led by the Krishak Sramik party of Fazlul Haq (Fazl ul-Haq) and the Awami League of Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy, Mujibur Rahman, and Maulana Bhashani. When the ballots were counted, the Muslim League had not only lost the election, it had been virtually eliminated as a viable political force in the province. Fazlul Haq was given the opportunity to form the new provincial government in East Bengal, but, before he could convene his cabinet, riots erupted in the factories south of the East Bengali capital of Dhaka (Dacca). This instability provided the central government with the opportunity to establish “governor’s rule” in the province and overturn the United Front’s electoral victory. Iskander Mirza, a civil servant, former defense secretary, and minister in the central government, was sent to rule over the province until such time as stability could be assured.

Iskander Mirza had no intention of implementing the results of the election, nor did he wish to install a new Muslim League government in East Bengal. But the Muslim League’s defeat and de facto elimination in the province necessitated realigning the Constituent Assembly—still grappling with the drafting of a national constitution—at the centre. Before this could be done, however, the Constituent Assembly moved to curtail Ghulam Muhammad’s viceregal powers. The governor-general’s response to this parliamentary effort to undermine his authority was to dissolve that body and reorganize the central government. The country’s high court cited the extraordinary powers of the chief executive and ruled not to reverse his action. The court, however, insisted that another constituent assembly should be organized and that constitution making should not be interrupted. Ghulam Muhammad assembled a “cabinet of talents” that included major personalities such as Iskander Mirza, Gen. Mohammad Ayub Khan (the army chief of staff), and H.S. Suhrawardy (the last chief minister of undivided Bengal, and the only Bengali with national credentials).

In 1955 the bureaucrats who now took control of what remained of the Muslim League combined the four provinces of West Pakistan into one administrative unit and argued for parity in any future national parliament between West Pakistan and East Bengal (now officially renamed East Pakistan). Ghulam Muhammad, by then seriously ill, was forced to relinquish his office, and Iskander Mirza succeeded to the post of governor-general. In the meantime a new Constituent Assembly was seated; and in 1956 that body, under new leadership but still subject to the power of the bureaucracy—and now to the military as well—completed Pakistan’s long-awaited constitution, using the parity formula that supposedly gave equal power to both wings of the country.

The constitution of 1956 embodied objectives regarding religion and politics that had been set out in the Basic Principles Report published in 1950, one of which was to declare the country an Islamic republic. The national parliament was to comprise one house of 300 members, equally representing East and West Pakistan. Ten additional seats were reserved for women, again with half coming from each region. The prime minister and cabinet were to govern according to the will of the parliament, with the president exercising only reserve powers. Pakistan’s first president was its last governor-general, Iskander Mirza, but at no time did he consider bowing to the wishes of the parliament.

Along with a close associate, Dr. Khan Sahib, a former premier of the North-West Frontier Province, Mirza formed the Republican Party and made Khan Sahib the chief minister of the new province of West Pakistan. The Republican Party was assembled to represent the landed interests in West Pakistan, the basic source of all political power. Never an organized body, the Republican Party lacked an ideology or a platform and merely served the feudal interests in West Pakistan.

Mirza made an alliance between the Republican Party and the East Pakistan Awami League and called on H.S. Suhrawardy to assume the office of prime minister. But the quixotic character of the alliance between the two parties, as well as the distance between the major personalities, produced only a short-lived association. Suhrawardy suffered the same fate as his predecessors and was ousted from office by Mirza without a vote of confidence. Unable to sustain alliances or govern in accordance with the constitution, the central government mirrored the chaos in the provinces. This was especially true in East Pakistan, where even in the absence of the Muslim League the different provincial parties—now further complicated by the formation of the National Awami Party, in 1957—struggled against forces that could not be reconciled. Pakistan was close to becoming unmanageable. The situation had become so grave that Khan Sahib circulated his idea that it was time to cease the political charade and give all power to a dictator.