The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics

448 Pages·2014·4.57 MB·English

by  Ayesha Jalal

THE STRUGGLE FOR PAKISTAN

THE STRUGGLE
FOR PAKISTAN
A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics
Ayesha Jalal
Th e Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Cambridge Massachusetts London En gland 2014
Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Jalal, Ayesha, author.
Th e struggle for Pakistan : a Muslim homeland and global politics /
Ayesha Jalal.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-05289-5 (alkaline paper)
1. Pakistan—History. 2. Pakistan—Politics and government.
3. Civil-military relations—Pakistan. 4. Democracy—Pakistan.
5. Islam and politics—Pakistan. 6. Islam and state—Pakistan.
7. Geopolitics—Pakistan. I. Title.
DS383.5.A2J338 2014
954.9104—dc23 2014006379
In memory of my father, Hamid Jalal,
for supporting my spirit of historical inquiry

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Abbreviations xi
Prologue: “Speak, for Your Lips Are Free” 1
1. From Minority to Nation 10
2. Truncated State, Divided Nation 40
3. A Sprawling Military Barrack 61
4. Pitfalls of Martial Rule 98
5. Toward the Watershed of 1971 142
6. Th e Rise and Fall of Pop u lism 177
7. Martial Rule in Islamic Garb 216
8. Democracy Restored? 259
9. A Geostrategic Riddle 308
10. Entangled Endgames 345
Epilogue: Overcoming Terror 384
Notes 399
Glossary 421
Ac know ledg ments 423
Index 425

PREFACE
Pakistan for me is more than just a place of origin. Ever since my formative
teen years in New York City, the trials and tribulations of this self-s tyled
Muslim homeland have sparked my curiosity and led me to ask questions
for which there were no easy answers. As a high school student in the cos-
mopolitan setting of Manhattan during the civil war in East Pakistan,
I could not reconcile the narratives of Pakistan’s offi cial nationalism with
daily media reports of atrocities perpetrated by the national army and its
auxiliaries against the Bengali population of the eastern wing. Th e events of
1971, which ended with Pakistan’s military defeat by India and the creation
of Bangladesh, demolished the most cherished truths of offi cial Pakistani
nationalism and left a profound mark on my development as a historian.
It was as an undergraduate at Wellesley College that understanding the
causes of Pakistan’s recurrent spells of military rule and the uses made of
Islam by the state to govern a federally disparate and inequitable nation-
state became an intellectual preoccupation. I was in Rawalpindi for my
summer holidays in 1977 when General Zia- ul- Haq overthrew the elected
government of Zulfi kar Ali Bhutto and imposed martial law in Pakistan.
Th e Zia regime exploited the global assertion of Islam in the wake of the
1973 Arab- Israeli war and the quadrupling of oil prices to promote “Islam-
ization” and inject public displays of Islamic piety into the national cul-
ture. Th e swift transformation of Pakistan in the name of Islamic ideology
defi ned by an unpop u lar military dictator propelled me toward studying
history, both as a methodology and as a discipline. Zia’s contention that
Islam was the sole reason for the country’s creation prompted my inquiry
into the partition of India that resulted in my doctoral work at the Univer-
sity of Cambridge. Th is work was later published in 1985 by Cambridge