Pakistan
 

Overview
Country, southern Asia.

Area: 307,374 sq mi (796,096 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 153,960,000. Capital: Islamabad. The population is a complex mix of indigenous peoples who have been affected by successive waves of migrations of Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Pashtuns, Mughals, and Arabs. Languages: Urdu (official), Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi. Religions: Islam (official; predominantly Sunni); also Christianity, Hinduism. Currency: Pakistan rupee. Pakistan may be divided into four regions: the northern mountains, the Balochistan Plateau, the Indus Plain, and the desert areas. The Himalayan and Trans-Himalayan ranges form the great mountain areas of the northernmost part of the country; some of the highest peaks are K2 and Nanga Parbat. The country has a developing mixed economy based largely on agriculture, light industries, and services. Remittances from Pakistanis working abroad are a major source of foreign exchange. Pakistan is a military-backed constitutional regime with two legislative houses; its chief of state is the president, assisted by the prime minister. The area has been inhabited since the 3rd millennium bc. From the 3rd century bc to the 2nd century ad, it was part of the Mauryan and Kushan kingdoms. The first Muslim conquests were in the 8th century ad. The British East India Co. subdued the reigning Mughal dynasty in 1757. During the period of British colonial rule, what is now (Muslim) Pakistan was part of (Hindu) India. The new state of Pakistan came into existence in 1947 by act of the British Parliament. The Kashmir region remained a disputed territory between Pakistan and India, with tensions resulting in military clashes and full-scale war in 1965. Civil war between East and West Pakistan in 1971 resulted in independence for Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) in 1972. Many Afghan refugees migrated to Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s and remained there during the Taliban and post-Taliban periods. Pakistan elected Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to head a modern Islamic state, in 1988. She and her party were ousted in 1990, but she returned to power in 1993–97. Conditions became volatile during that period. Border flare-ups with India continued, and Pakistan conducted tests of nuclear weapons. Political conditions worsened, and the army carried out a coup in 1999.

Profile
Official name Islam-i Jamhuriya-e Pakistan (Islamic Republic of Pakistan)
Form of government federal republic with two legislative houses (Senate [100]; National Assembly [342])
Chiefs of state and government President assisted by Prime Minister
Capital Islamabad
Official language Urdu
Official religion Islam
Monetary unit Pakistani rupee (PKR)
Population estimate (2008) 161,910,000
Total area (sq mi) 307,374
Total area (sq km) 796,096

Main

populous and multiethnic country of South Asia. Pakistan has historically and culturally been associated with India. Since the two countries achieved independence in 1947, Pakistan has been distinguished from its larger southeastern neighbour by its overwhelmingly Muslim population (as opposed to the predominance of Hindus in India). Pakistan has struggled throughout its existence to attain political stability and sustained social development. Its capital is Islamabad, in the foothills of the Himalayas in the northern part of the country, and its largest city is Karachi, in the south on the coast of the Arabian Sea.

Pakistan was brought into being at the time of the partition of British India, in response to the demands of Islamic nationalists: as articulated by the All India Muslim League under the leadership of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, India’s Muslims would receive just representation only in their own country. From independence until 1971, Pakistan (both de facto and in law) consisted of two regions—West Pakistan, in the Indus River basin in the northwestern portion of the Indian subcontinent, and East Pakistan, located more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the east in the vast delta of the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system. In response to grave internal political problems that erupted in civil war in 1971, East Pakistan was proclaimed the independent country of Bangladesh.

Pakistan encompasses a rich diversity of landscapes, starting in the northwest, from the soaring Pamirs and the Karakoram Range through a maze of mountain ranges, a complex of valleys, and inhospitable plateaus, down to the remarkably even surface of the fertile Indus River plain, which drains southward into the Arabian Sea. It contains a section of the ancient Silk Road and the Khyber Pass, the famous passageway that has brought outside influences into the otherwise isolated subcontinent. Lofty peaks such as K2 and Nanga Parbat, in the Pakistani-administered region of Kashmir, present a challenging lure to mountain climbers. Along the Indus River, the artery of the country, the ancient site of Mohenjo-daro marks one of the cradles of civilization.

Yet, politically and culturally, Pakistan has struggled to define itself. Established as a parliamentary democracy that espoused secular ideas, the country has experienced repeated military coups, and religion—that is to say, adherence to the values of Sunni Islam—has increasingly become a standard by which political leaders are measured. In addition, northern Pakistan—particularly the Federally Administered Tribal Areas—has become a haven for members of neighbouring Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime and for members of numerous other Islamic extremist groups. In various parts of the country, instances of ethnic, religious, and social conflict have flared up from time to time, often rendering those areas virtually ungovernable by the central authorities, and acts of violence against religious minorities have increased.

At the time of partition in 1947, as many as 10 million Muslim refugees fled their homes in India and sought refuge in Pakistan—about 8 million in West Pakistan. Virtually an equal number of Hindus and Sikhs were uprooted from their land and familiar surroundings in what became Pakistan, and they fled to India. Unlike the earlier migrations, which took centuries to unfold, these chaotic population transfers took hardly one year. The resulting impact on the life of the subcontinent has reverberated ever since in the rivalries between the two countries, and each has continued to seek a lasting modus vivendi with the other. Pakistan and India have fought four wars, three of which (1948–49, 1965, and 1999) were over Kashmir. Since 1998 both countries have also possessed nuclear weapons, further heightening tensions between them.

Land
Pakistan is bounded by Iran to the west, Afghanistan to the northwest and north, China to the northeast, and India to the east and southeast. The coast of the Arabian Sea forms its southern border.

Since 1947 the Kashmir region, along the western Himalayas, has been disputed, with Pakistan, India, and China each controlling sections of the territory. Part of the Pakistani-administered territory comprises the so-called Azad Kashmir (“Free Kashmir”) region—which Pakistan nonetheless considers an independent state, with its capital at Muzaffarabad. The remainder of Pakistani-administered Kashmir consists of Gilgit and Baltistan, known collectively as the Northern Areas.

Relief and drainage
Pakistan is situated at the western end of the great Indo-Gangetic Plain. Of the total area of the country, about three-fifths consists of rough mountainous terrain and plateaus, and the remaining two-fifths constitutes a wide expanse of level plain. The land can be divided into five major regions: the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges and their subranges; the Hindu Kush and western mountains; the Balochistan plateau; the submontane plateau (Potwar Plateau, Salt Range, trans-Indus plain, and Sialkot area); and the Indus River plain. Within each major division there are further subdivisions, including a number of desert areas.

The Himalayan and Karakoram ranges
The Himalayas, which have long been a physical and cultural divide between South and Central Asia, form the northern rampart of the subcontinent, and their western ranges occupy the entire northern end of Pakistan, extending about 200 miles (320 km) into the country. Spreading over Kashmir and northern Pakistan, the western Himalayan system splits into three distinct ranges, which are, from south to north, the Pir Panjal Range, the Zaskar Range, and the Ladakh Range. Farther north is the Karakoram Range, which is a separate system adjoining the Himalayas. This series of ranges varies in elevation from roughly 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) to higher than 19,500 feet (6,000 metres) above sea level. Four of the region’s peaks exceed 26,000 feet (8,000 metres), and many rise to heights of more than 15,000 feet (4,500 metres). These include such towering peaks as Nanga Parbat (26,660 feet [8,126 metres]) and K2, also called Godwin Austen (28,251 feet [8,611 metres]), in the Northern Areas.

Several important rivers flow from, or through, the mountains of Kashmir into Pakistan. From the Pir Panjal Range flows the Jhelum River (which bisects the famous Vale of Kashmir); the Indus River descends between the Zaskar and Ladakh ranges; and the Shyok River rises in the Karakoram Range. South of the Pir Panjal is the northwestern extension of the Shiwalik Range (there rising to about 600 to 900 feet [200 to 300 metres]), which extend over the southern part of the Hazara and Murree hills and include the hills surrounding Rawalpindi and neighbouring Islamabad.

Beyond the Karakoram Range in the extreme north lies the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China; to the northwest, beyond the Hindu Kush, are the Pamirs, where only the Vākhān (Wakhan Corridor), a narrow strip of Afghan territory, separates Pakistan from Tajikistan. The Himalayan massif was pierced in 1970 when Chinese and Pakistani engineers completed the Karakoram Highway across the Karakoram Range, linking the town of Gilgit in the Northern Areas with Kashgar (Kashi) in Xinjiang. The highway, a marvel of modern technology, carries considerable commerce between the two countries but has promoted little cultural exchange.

The northern mountain barrier influences the precipitation pattern in Pakistan by intercepting monsoon (rain-bearing) winds from the south. Melting snow and glacial meltwater from the mountains also feed the rivers, including the Indus, which emerge from the east-west-aligned ranges to flow southward. Siachen Glacier, one of the world’s longest mountain glaciers, feeds the Nubra River, a tributary of the Shyok. The many glaciers in this region, particularly those of the Karakoram Range, are among the few in the world to have grown in size since the late 20th century.

The northern and western regions of the country are subject to frequent seismic activity—the natural consequence of a geologically young mountain system. Minor earth tremors are common throughout the region. However, a number of earthquakes have been severe and highly destructive, given the fact that many buildings are poorly constructed and that those in the mountains are often precipitously perched. Historically recent major quakes in Pakistan include those in 1935, 1945, 1974, and 2005. The latter two were in the far north of the country, and the 2005 quake—centred in the mountainous border region of the North-West Frontier Province and Azad Kashmir—killed some 80,000 to 90,000 people and left the entire area devastated.

The population in this inhospitable northern region is generally sparse, although in a few favoured places it is dense. In most of the tiny settlements of this region, the usual crop is barley; fruit cultivation, especially apricots, is of special importance. Timber, mainly species of pine, is found in some parts, but its occurrence varies with precipitation and elevation. Many slopes have been denuded of cover by excessive timber felling and overgrazing.

The Hindu Kush and the western mountains
In far northern Pakistan the Hindu Kush branches off southwestward from the nodal orogenic uplift known as the Pamir Knot. The ridges of the Hindu Kush generally trend from northeast to southwest, while those of the Karakorams run in a southeast-northwest direction from the knot. The Hindu Kush is made up of two distinct ranges, a main crest line that is cut by transverse streams, and a watershed range to the west of the main range, in Afghanistan, that divides the Indus system of rivers from the Amu Darya (ancient Oxus River) drainage basin. From the Hindu Kush, several branches run southward through the areas of Chitral, Dir, and Swat, in North-West Frontier Province. These branches have deep, narrow valleys along the Kunar, Panjkora, and Swat rivers. In the extreme northern portion, the ranges are capped with perpetual snow and ice; high peaks include Tirich Mir, which rises to 25,230 feet (7,690 metres). The valley sides are generally bare on account of their isolation from the precipitation-bearing influences. Toward the south the region is largely covered with forests of deodar (a type of cedar) and pine and also has extensive grasslands.

The Safid Mountain Range, lying south of the Kābul River and forming a border with Afghanistan, trends roughly east to west and rises throughout to an elevation of about 14,000 feet (4,300 metres). Its outliers are spread over Kohat district, North-West Frontier Province. South of the Safid Range are the hills of Waziristan, which are crossed by the Kurram and Tochi rivers, and even farther south is the Gumal River. Comparatively broad mountain passes are located south of the Kābul River. They are, from north to south, the Khyber, Kurram, Tochi, Gomal, and Bolan. The Khyber Pass is of special historical interest: broad enough to allow for the passing of large numbers of troops, it has often been the point of ingress for armies invading the subcontinent.

South of the Gumal River, the Sulaiman Range runs in a roughly north-south direction. The highest point of that range, Takht-e Sulaiman, has twin peaks, the higher of which reaches 18,481 feet (5,633 metres). The Sulaiman Range tapers into the Marri and Bugti hills in the south. The Sulaiman and, farther south, the low Kirthar Range separate the Balochistan plateau from the Indus plain.

The Balochistan plateau
The vast tableland of Balochistan contains a great variety of physical features. In the northeast a basin centred on the towns of Zhob and Loralai forms a trellis-patterned lobe that is surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. To the east and southeast is the Sulaiman Range, which joins the Central Brahui Range near Quetta, and to the north and northwest is the Toba Kakar Range (which farther west becomes the Khwaja Amran Range). The hilly terrain becomes less severe southwestward in the form of Ras Koh Range. The small Quetta basin is surrounded on all sides by mountains. The whole area appears to form a node of high ranges. West of the Ras Koh Range, the general landform of northwestern Balochistan is a series of low-lying plateaus divided by hills. In the north the Chagai Hills border a region of true desert, consisting of inland drainage and hamuns (playas).

Southern Balochistan is a vast wilderness of mountain ranges, of which the Central Brahui Range is the backbone. The easternmost Kirthar Range is backed by the Pab Range in the west. Other important ranges of southern Balochistan are the Central Makran Range and the Makran Coast Range, whose steep face to the south divides the coastal plain from the rest of the plateau. The Makran coastal track mostly comprises level mud flats surrounded by sandstone ridges. The isolation of the arid plain has been broken by an ongoing development project at Gwadar, which is linked with Karachi via an improved road transport system.

The submontane plateau
Lying south of the northern mountain rampart, the submontane plateau has four distinct divisions—the Trans-Indus plains, the Potwar Plateau, the Salt Range, and the Sialkot region.

The Trans-Indus plains, west of the Indus River, comprise the hill-girt plateaus of the Vale of Peshawar and of Kohat and Bannu, all of which are oases in the arid, scrub-covered landscape of the North-West Frontier Province. Of these, the Vale of Peshawar is the most fertile. Gravel or clay alluvial detritus covers much of the area and is formed from loose particles or fragments separated from masses of rock by erosion and other forces. Annual precipitation is generally limited to between 10 and 15 inches (250 and 380 mm), and most of the cultivated area in the Vale of Peshawar is irrigated from canals.

Kohat is less developed than the Vale of Peshawar. Precipitation is about 16 inches (400 mm). Only a small percentage of the cultivated area is canal-irrigated, and its groundwater is not adequately exploited, although the water table is generally high. Much of the area consists of scrub and poor grazing land. The region is much broken by limestone ridges, and the uneven limestone floor is variously filled with lacustrine clays, gravel, or boulders.

In Bannu, about one-fourth of the cultivated area is irrigated. Annual precipitation is low, amounting to about 11 inches (275 mm). Fat-tailed sheep, camels, and donkeys are raised in Kohat and Bannu; wool is an important cash crop.

The Potwar Plateau covers an area of about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km) and lies at an elevation of some 1,200 to 1,900 feet (350 to 575 metres). It is bounded on the east by the Jhelum River and on the west by the Indus River. On the north, the Kala Chitta Range and Margala Hills (at about 3,000 to 5,000 feet [900 to 1,500 metres]) form its boundary. Toward the south it gradually slopes into the Salt Range, which presents a steep face rising to about 2,000 feet (600 metres) even farther south. The middle of the Potwar Plateau is occupied by the structurally downwarped basin of the Soan River. The general terrain of the basin consists of interlaced ravines, which are locally known as khaderas and are set deep in the soft Shiwalik beds of which the whole area is composed. The surface layer of the area is formed of windblown loessic silt, deteriorating into sand and gravel toward the hill slopes. The small Rawalpindi plain in the north is the location of the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The Potwar Plateau receives modest annual precipitation, averaging between 15 and 20 inches (380 to 510 mm). Though precipitation is somewhat higher in the northwest, the southwest is very arid. The landscape is dissected and eroded by streams that, during the rains, cut into the land and wash away the soil. The streams are generally deep set and are of little or no use for irrigation. It is generally a poor agricultural area, and its population puts excessive pressure on its resources.

The Salt Range is an extremely arid territory that marks the boundary between the submontane region and the Indus River plain to the south. The highest point of the Salt Range, Mount Sakesar, lies at 4,992 feet (1,522 metres). The Salt Range is of interest to geologists because it contains the most complete geologic sequence in the world, in which rocks from early Cambrian times (about 540 million years ago) to the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) are exposed in an unbroken sequence.

The Sialkot region is a narrow submontane area in the northeast. Unlike the Potwar Plateau, it is a rich agricultural region. Precipitation varies from 25 to 35 inches (650 to 900 mm) per year, and the water table is high, facilitating well (and tube-well) irrigation; the soil is heavy and highly fertile. The population distribution is dense, and the land is divided into small farms on which intensive cultivation is practiced.

The Indus River plain
The Indus River plain is a vast expanse of fertile land, covering about 200,000 square miles (518,000 square km), with a gentle slope from the Himalayan piedmont in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south. The average gradient of the slope is no more than 1 foot per mile (1 metre per 5 km). Except for the micro relief, the plain is featureless. It is divisible into two sections, the upper and lower Indus plains, on account of their differing physiographic features. The upper Indus plain is drained by the Indus together with its tributaries, the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers, forming a developed system of interfluves, known locally as doabs, in Punjab province (Persian panj āb, “five waters,” in reference to the five rivers). In the lower plain the Indus River has a Nilotic character; i.e., it forms a single large river with no significant tributaries. The plain narrows to form a corridor near Mithankot, where the Sulaiman Range comes close to the plain and the Indus merges with its last major tributary, the Panjnad River (which is itself merely the confluence of the five Punjab rivers). Flooding is a perennial problem, especially along the Indus, as a consequence of heavy rains (usually in July and August).

The upper Indus plain consists of three subdivisions: the Himalayan piedmont, the doabs, and the Sulaiman piedmont (referred to locally as the Derajat). The Himalayan piedmont, or the sub-Shiwalik zone, is a narrow strip of land where the rivers enter into the plain from their mountain stage, thereby giving each a somewhat steeper gradient. The zone is characterized by numerous rivulets, which have produced a broken topography in parts of the zone. These streams remain dry except in the rainy season, when they swell into gushing streams with considerable erosive power.

The doabs between the various rivers display similar micro relief, which comprises four distinct landforms—active floodplains, meander floodplains, cover floodplains, and scalloped interfluves. An active floodplain (known locally as a khaddar or bet), which lies adjacent to a river, is often called “the summer bed of rivers,” as it is inundated almost every rainy season. It is the scene of changing river channels, though protective bunds (levees) have been built at many places on the outer margin of the bet to contain the river water in the rainy season. Adjoining the active floodplain is the meander floodplain, which occupies higher ground away from the river and is littered with bars, oxbow lakes, extinct channels, and levees. The cover floodplain is an expanse of geologically recent alluvium, the result of sheet flooding, in which alluvium covers the former riverine features. The scalloped interfluves, or bars, are the central, higher parts of the doab, with old alluvium of relatively uniform texture. The boundaries of the scalloped features are formed by river-cut scarps at places over 20 feet (6 metres) high. The generally level surface of this section of the plain is broken into small pockets in Chiniot and at Sangla Hill, near the much denuded Kirana Hills, which stand out in jagged pinnacles. These hills are considered to be the outliers of the Aravali Range of India.

The largest but poorest of the doabs is the Sind (Sindh) Sagar Doab, which is mostly desert and is situated between the Indus and the Chenab rivers. The doabs that lie to the east of it, however, constitute the richest agricultural lands in the country. Until the advent of irrigation, at the end of the 19th century, much of the area was a desolate waste, because of the low amount of precipitation. But irrigation has been a mixed blessing; it has also caused waterlogging and salinity in some places. In an attempt to correct this problem, the Pakistan government, with the financial support of such international agencies as the World Bank, constructed the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in the 1980s and ’90s. The intent was to build a large artificial waterway roughly east of and parallel to the Indus to carry salt water from the plains of Punjab and Sind (Sindh) provinces to the Arabian Sea coast in the Badin region of southeastern Sind. The final segment of the LBOD consisted of building a “tidal drain” 26 miles (42 km) to the sea. However, instead of draining salt water away, the improperly designed tidal drain produced an environmental disaster in southeastern Sind: large portions of the land and freshwater lakes and ponds were flooded by salt water, crops were ruined, and freshwater fisheries were destroyed. The tidal drain issue was further complicated by instances of severe weather in the coastal region, including a destructive tropical cyclone in 1999 and torrential rains there and in Balochistan in 2007—both of which caused many deaths and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. After the 2007 storms, the people of Badin called on the government to cease using the LBOD.

The Sulaiman piedmont is different from the Himalayan piedmont in that it is generally dry. Seamed with numerous streams and wadis, the surface is undulating. The gradient of the streams is comparatively steep, the floodplains are narrow, and the right bank of the Indus sometimes rises just above the main channel.

The lower Indus plain, the course of which goes through Sind province, is flat, with a gradient as slight as 1 foot per 3 miles (1 metre per 10 km). The micro relief is quite similar to that of the upper Indus plain. The valley of the Indus and its banks have risen higher than the surrounding land as a result of the aggradational work of the river; and though the river is lined with flood-protecting bunds along its course, the alluvial sands and clays of the soil tend to give way before floods, leading the river to change course frequently. The level surface of the plain is disturbed at Sukkur and Hyderabad, where there are random outcroppings of limestone. The Indus delta has its apex near Thatta, below which distributaries of the river spread out to form the deltaic plain. To the southeast of that point is the Rann of Kachchh (Kutch), which is an expanse of saline marsh. The coastal tract is low and flat, except where the Pabbi Hills meet the coast between Karachi and Ras Muari (Cape Monze).

Manchhar, a marshy lake west of the Indus, has an area of 14 square miles (36 square km) at low water but extends for no less than 200 square miles (500 square km) when full; on such occasions it is one of the largest freshwater lakes in South Asia. The quality of groundwater in the Indus plain varies, that in the southern zone (Sind) being mostly saline and unfit for agricultural use. Extensive areas in both the northern and southern zones of the plain have been affected by waterlogging and salinity. In the south the Indus delta (in marked contrast to the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta) is a wild waste. When high tides and Indus floods coincide, the littoral is flooded for some 20 miles (30 km) inland.

The desert areas
The southeastern part of the Indus plain, from eastern Bahawalpur to the Thar Parkar region in the south, is a typical desert, an extension of the Thar Desert between Pakistan and India. It is separated from the central irrigated zone of the plains by the dry bed of the Ghaggar River in Bahawalpur and the eastern Nara Canal in Sind. The desert is variously known as the Cholistan or Rohi Desert in Bahawalpur and the Pat or Thar Desert in Sind. The surface of the desert is a wild maze of sand dunes and sand ridges. Most of the Sind Sagar Doab, the most western of the doabs of Punjab, was an unproductive wasteland (known as the Thal Desert) before the construction of the Jinnah Barrage on the Indus River near Kalabagh in 1946. The Thal canal system, which draws water from the barrage, has turned parts of the desert into fertile cultivated land.

Soils
Pakistan’s soils are classified as pedocals, which comprise a dry soil group with high concentrations of calcium carbonate and a low content of organic matter; they are characteristic of a land with low and erratic precipitation. The major soil groupings are Indus basin soils, mountain soils, and sandy desert soils. However, the very mode of soil formation gives rise to their diversification even within small areas. These soils vary in texture, chemical composition, colour, and organic content from place to place.

The Indus basin soils are mostly thick alluvium deposited by rivers and are of recent origin. Soils in the vicinity of river courses are the most recent and vary in texture from sand to silt loam and silty clay loams. They have a low organic content and are collectively known as the khaddar soils. Away from the river, toward the middle of the doabs, older alluvial soils (called bangar) are widely distributed. These soils are medium to fine in texture, have low organic content, and are highly productive under conditions of irrigation and fertilization. In some waterlogged areas, however, these soils are salinized. Strongly alkaline soils are localized in some small patches. In the submontane areas under subhumid conditions these soils are noncalcareous and have slightly higher organic content. In the delta the estuarine soils are excessively saline and barren.

Mountain soils are both residual (i.e., formed in a stationary position) and transported. Shallow residual soils have developed along the slopes and in the broken hill country. Those soils generally are strongly calcareous and have low organic content, but under subhumid conditions their organic content increases.

Sandy desert soils cover the Cholistan part of Sind Sagar Doab and western Balochistan. They include both shifting sandy soils and clayey floodplain soils. These include moderately calcareous and eolian (wind-borne) soils.

Climate
Aridity is the most pervasive aspect of Pakistan’s climate, and its continental nature can be seen in the extremes of temperature. Pakistan is situated on the edge of a monsoonal (i.e., wet-dry) system. Precipitation throughout the country generally is erratic, and its volume is highly variable. The rainy monsoon winds, the exact margins of which vary from year to year, blow in intermittent bursts, and most moisture comes in the summer. Tropical storms from the Arabian Sea provide precipitation to the coastal areas but are also variable in character.

The efficiency of the monsoonal precipitation is poor, because of its concentration from early July to mid-September, when high temperatures maximize loss through evaporation. In the north the mean annual precipitation at Peshawar is 13 inches (330 mm), and at Rawalpindi it reaches 37 inches (950 mm). In the plains, however, mean annual precipitation generally decreases from northeast to southwest, falling from about 20 inches (500 mm) at Lahore to less than 5 inches (130 mm) in the Indus River corridor and 3.5 inches (90 mm) at Sukkur. Under maritime influence, precipitation increases slightly to about 6 inches (155 mm) at Hyderabad and 8 inches (200 mm) at Karachi.

The 20-inch (500-mm) precipitation line, which runs northwest from near Lahore, marks off the Potwar Plateau and a part of the Indus plain in the northeast; these areas receive enough rainfall for dry farming (farming without irrigation). South of this region, cultivation is confined mainly to riverine strips until the advent of irrigation. Most of the Balochistan plateau, especially in the west and south, is exceptionally dry.

Pakistan’s continental type of climate is characterized by extreme variations of temperature, both seasonally and daily. High elevations modify the climate in the cold, snow-covered northern mountains; temperatures on the Balochistan plateau are somewhat higher. Along the coastal strip, the climate is modified by sea breezes. In the rest of the country, temperatures reach great extremes in the summer; the mean temperature during June is 100 °F (38 °C) in the plains, where the highest temperatures can exceed 117 °F (47 °C). Jacobabad, in Sind, has recorded the highest temperature in Pakistan, 127 °F (53 °C). In the summer, hot winds called loos blow across the plains during the day. Trees shed their leaves to avoid excessive moisture loss. The dry, hot weather is broken occasionally by dust storms and thunderstorms that temporarily lower the temperature. Evenings are cool; the diurnal variation in temperature may be as much as 20 to 30 °F (11 to 17 °C). Winters are cold, with minimum mean temperatures of about 40 °F (4 °C) in January.

Plant and animal life
Differences of latitude, elevation, soil type, and climate have favoured a variety of plant growth. Drought-resistant vegetation in the desert consists of stunted thorny scrub, mostly acacia. The plains present a parkland view of scattered trees. Dry scrub forests, called rakhs, grow in parts of the arid plain. In the northern and northwestern foothills and plains, shrub forests, principally acacia, and wild olive are found. In the wetter parts of the northern and northwestern mountains, evergreen coniferous softwood forests, with some broad-leaved species, grow. Fir, deodar, blue pine (Pinus wallichiana), and spruce are the principal coniferous trees. At lower elevations, below 3,000 feet (900 metres), broad-leaved oaks, maples, birches, walnuts, and chestnuts predominate. Conifers are an important source of commercial timber. In the arid landscape of the Potwar Plateau, some hills are only thinly wooded. In the northern ranges of the Balochistan plateau are some groves of pine and olive. The babul tree (Acacia arabica) is common in the Indus River valley, as are many species of fruit trees. The country’s forest cover is naturally sparse, but it has been diminished further by excessive timber cutting and overgrazing.

Destruction of natural habitats and excessive hunting have led to a reduction in the range of animal life in large parts of the country, but wildlife can still be found in abundance in some areas. The variety of large mammals in the northern mountains includes brown bears, Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus, also known as the Himalayan bear), leopards, rare snow leopards, Siberian ibex (Capra ibex sibirica), and wild sheep, including markhors, Marco Polo sheep (Ovis ammon polii, a type of argali), and Chiltan wild goats (Capra aegagrus chialtanensis).

Manchhar Lake in Sind has many aquatic birds, including mallards, teals, shovelers, spoonbills, geese, pochards, and wood ducks. Crocodiles, gavials (crocodile-like reptiles), pythons, and wild boars inhabit the Indus River delta area. The Indus River itself is home to the Indus river dolphin, a freshwater dolphin whose habitat has been severely stressed by hunting, pollution, and the creation of dams and barrages. At least two types of sea turtles, the green and olive ridley, nest on the Makran coast.

Desert gazelles are widely distributed, including nilgais, chinkaras (Gazella gazella bennetti), and muntjacs. Jackals, foxes, and various wild cats (including Eurasian lynxes, caracals, fishing cats, and jungle cats [Felis chaus]) are also found throughout the country. Despite occasional reported sightings of the Asiatic cheetah, that species is likely extinct in Pakistan. A series of national parks and game preserves was established beginning in the 1970s. However, a number of species have been declared endangered, including the Indus river dolphin, snow leopard, and gavial.

People
Ethnic composition
The area currently occupied by Pakistan has long been a route of military conquest and an entrepôt for peoples and cultures. It is therefore a significant cultural and ethnic melting pot. Modern Pakistan’s population can be divided broadly into five major and several minor ethnic groups. The Punjabis, who constitute roughly half of the population, are the single largest group. The Pashtuns (Pathans) account for about one-eighth of the population, and Sindhis form a somewhat smaller group. Of the remaining population, the muhajirs—Muslims who fled to Pakistan after the partition in 1947—and Balochs constitute the largest groups.

There are subgroups within each of these five categories, as well as a number of smaller ethnic groups not included among them. The Arains, Rajputs, and Jats—all Punjabis—regard themselves as ethnically distinct. Some groups overlap the five categories; for instance, there are Punjabi Pashtuns as well as Hazarvi Pashtuns. Some smaller groups, such as the Brahuis in Sind (Sindh) and the Seraikis in Punjab, are also ethnically distinct. Tribal Pashtuns are another subgroup of the Pashtun constellation. Divided into numerous tribal orders, they inhabit the mountainous region along the Afghan frontier. Among these are the Yusufzai, Orakzai, Swati, Afridi, Wazir, Mohmand, and Mahsud. Other unique tribal peoples are found still farther north in the remoter mountain regions of Dir, Chitral, Hunza, and Gilgit.

Linguistic composition
Pakistan is, in general, linguistically heterogeneous, and no single language can be said to be common to the whole population. Each of its principal languages has a strong regional focus, although statistics show some languages to be distributed between various provinces because administrative boundaries cut across linguistic regions. The picture is also complicated by the fact that, especially in Sind, there are substantial numbers of Urdu- and Punjabi-speaking muhajirs. In addition to Urdu and Punjabi, other languages claimed as mother tongues include Sindhi, Pashto, Saraiki (Seraiki), Balochi, and Brahui.

Originating during the Mughal period (early 16th to mid-18th century), Urdu is the youngest of the country’s languages and is not indigenous to Pakistan; it is similar to Hindi, the most widely spoken language of India. Although the two languages have a common base, in its literary form Urdu emphasizes words of Persian and Arabic origin, whereas Hindi emphasizes words of Sanskrit origin. Urdu is written in a modified version of the Persian script, whereas Hindi is written in Devanagari script. Because it is predominantly the language of the educated Muslims of northern India, including the Punjab, Urdu has strong associations with Muslim nationalism—hence the ideological significance of Urdu in Pakistani politics. Urdu is the mother tongue of only a small proportion of the population of Pakistan, but it is the country’s only official language; it is taught in the schools along with the regional languages.

The 1956 constitution prescribed the use of English (the administrative language during the colonial period) for official purposes for 20 years, and the 1962 constitution made that use indefinite. The 1973 constitution, however, designated a 15-year transition period to Urdu, after which English would no longer be used for official purposes. That provision of the constitution has not been fully implemented; English is still taught and used in schools at all levels, and it remains the lingua franca of the government, intelligentsia, and military. With the exception of this educated elite, English is spoken fluently by only a small percentage of the population. Many English words and phrases, however, have worked their way into local parlance, and most Pakistanis with even a modest education have some grasp of the language.

Urdu, rather than Punjabi, is the first language taught in virtually all schools in Punjab province, so every educated Punjabi reads and writes Urdu. In Pakistan, Punjabi is mainly spoken rather than written, and it is a predominantly rural rather than an urban language. A movement to promote the Punjabi language began in the 1980s, and some Punjabi literature has been published using the Urdu script; among the works published are Punjabi classics that have hitherto been available in Gurmukhi script (in which Punjabi is written in India) or preserved in oral tradition.

Sindhi is derived from the Virachada dialect of the Prakrit languages; it has fewer dialects than Punjabi and is written in a special variant of the Arabic script. Prior to the partition of India in 1947, most of the educated middle class in Sind were Hindu, and their departure to India at that time had a traumatic effect on Sindhi culture. Vigorous efforts were therefore directed toward recovering and preserving the rich Sindhi literary and cultural heritage. Large numbers of Urdu-speaking refugees settled in Sind and came to constitute the majority of the population of its larger towns. As a consequence, the movement for the promotion of Sindhi language and culture was sometimes expressed as opposition toward Urdu. The Sindhi population feared that their language and culture would be overrun by the language and culture of the predominantly Urdu-speaking muhajir community; this fear led to what became known as the language riots of 1972 and to the national government’s decision to grant special status to the Sindhi language. (The rise of militant ethnic politics in Sind that began in the 1980s—notably the clashes between native Sindhis and organized members of the muhajir community—likely can be traced to that decision.)

Pashto, the language of the Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas, has a scant literary tradition, although it has a rich oral tradition. There are three major dialect patterns within which the various individual dialects may be classified: Northern Pashto (Pakhto), which is the variety spoken along the Afghanistan border and in and around Peshawar; Central Pashto, also called Waziri and Bannochi, spoken in Waziristan, Bannu, and Karak; and Southern Pashto, spoken in Balochistan and Quetta. As in the Punjab, Urdu is the language taught in schools, and educated Pashtuns read and write Urdu. Again, as in the case of Punjabi, there was a movement for developing the written language in Persian script and increasing the usage of Pashto.

The two main spoken languages of Balochistan are Balochi and Brahui. An important dialect of Balochi, called Makrani or Southern Balochi, is spoken in Makran, the southern region of Balochistan, which borders Iran.

Religion
Almost all of the people of Pakistan are Muslims or at least follow Islamic traditions, and Islamic ideals and practices suffuse virtually all parts of Pakistani life. Most Pakistanis belong to the Sunni sect, the major branch of Islam; there are also significant numbers of Shīʿite Muslims. Among Sunnis, Sufism is extremely popular and influential. In addition to the two main groups there is a very small sect called the Aḥmadiyah, which is also sometimes called the Qadiani (for Qadian, India, where the sect originated).

The role of religion in Pakistani society and politics finds its most visible expression in the Islamic Assembly (Jamāʿat-e Islāmī) party. Founded in 1941 by Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī (Maududi), one of the world’s foremost thinkers in Sunni revivalism, the party has long played a role in Pakistan’s political life and has continually advocated refashioning Pakistan as a chaste Islamic or theocratic state.

The majority of Pakistani Sunnis belong to the Ḥanafī (Hanafite) school, which is one of four major schools (madhhabs) or subsects of Islamic jurisprudence; it is perhaps the most liberal of the four but nevertheless is still demanding in its instructions to the faithful. Two popular reform movements founded in northern India—the Deoband and Barelwi schools—are likewise widespread in Pakistan. Differences between the two movements over a variety of theological issues are significant to the point that violence often has erupted between them. Another group, Tablīghī Jamāʿat (founded 1926), headquartered in Raiwind, near Lahore, is a lay ministry group whose annual conference attracts hundreds of thousands of members from throughout the world. It is perhaps the largest grassroots Muslim organization in the world.

The Wahhābī movement, founded in Arabia, has made inroads in Pakistan, most notably among the tribal Pashtuns in the Afghan border areas. Moreover, since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Saudi Arabia has assisted Pakistan in caring for vast numbers of Afghan refugees in the border areas and in the construction and staffing of thousands of traditional Sunni madrassas (religious schools). These schools generally have provided instruction along Wahhābī lines, and they subsequently have become vehicles for the spreading influence of extremist groups (particularly al-Qaeda and the Taliban of Afghanistan) in Balochistan, the North-West Frontier Province, and elsewhere throughout the country. Although extremism in the name of Islam has become more pronounced in Pakistan since 2000, more-moderate Sunni Muslims are found in the country’s business community, especially among Gujarati Memons and Chiniotis from Punjab who follow less-conservative Islamic traditions.

Among the Shīʿites there are several subsects; notable are the Ismāʿīlīs (or Seveners)—including the Nizārīs (followers of the Aga Khans, among whom are the Khojas and the Bohrās), who are prominent in commerce and industry—and the Ithnā ʿAshariyyah (or Twelvers), who are more austere in their practices and more closely resemble the Shiite tradition found in Iran. Shīʿites have long been the target of Sunni radicals, and violent encounters between followers of the two sects have been common.

With the exception of some sects, such as Dawoodi Bohrās, there is no concept of an ordained priesthood among Pakistan’s Muslims. Anyone who leads prayers in mosques may be appointed imam. Those who are formally trained in religion are accorded the honorific mullah or mawlānā. Collectively, the community of Muslim scholars is known as the ʿulamāʾ (“scholars”), but among the practitioners of a more popular sect of Islam (generally associated with Sufism) there are powerful hereditary networks of holy men called pīrs, who receive great reverence (as well as gifts in cash or kind) from a multitude of followers. An established pīr may pass on his spiritual powers and sanctified authority to one or more of his murīds (“disciples”), who may then operate as pīrs in their own right. There are also many self-appointed pīrs who practice locally without being properly inducted into one of the major Sufi orders. Pīrs who occupy high positions in the pīr hierarchy wield great power and play an influential role in public affairs.

Among the basic tenets of the Aḥmadiyah is the belief that other prophets came after Muhammad and that their leader, the 19th century’s Ghulam Ahmad, was called to accept a divine mission. The Aḥmadiyah therefore appear to question Muhammad’s role as the last of God’s prophets. More conservative Muslims find this seeming revision of traditional belief blasphemous, and in 1974 a constitutional amendment declared the Aḥmadiyah community to be non-Muslims. The community became the focal point of riots in the Punjab in 1953, instigated by the Islamic Assembly but also including a broad representation of religious groups. Since then the Aḥmadiyah have experienced considerable persecution, particularly during the administration (1977–88) of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq—when they were denied all semblance of Islamic character—and they have been denied positions in the civil service and the military and often have been forced to conceal their identity.

At the time of partition, most Hindus left newly formed West Pakistan for India. In the east, wealthier Hindus also fled newly formed East Pakistan, but a sizeable minority of Hindus (nearly 10 million) stayed behind. The vast majority remained there until the civil war of 1971 (which led to the creation of Bangladesh) compelled them to seek refuge in India. Pakistan’s Hindu community now constitutes only a tiny fraction of Bangladesh’s population.

There is also a small but fairly significant population of Christians in the country. There are adherents to a variety of denominations, Roman Catholicism being the largest. Violent attacks against Christians became increasingly common during the Zia ul-Haq regime, a trend that continued afterward with the increase of religious strife.

Settlement patterns
Traditional regions
The traditional regions of Pakistan, shaped by ecological factors and historical evolution, are reflected in the administrative division of the country into the four provinces of Sind, Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province (including the Federally Administered Tribal Areas), and Balochistan, each of which is ethnically and linguistically distinct.

In the Punjab, until the advent of irrigation, most of the population was restricted to those areas receiving more than 20 inches (500 mm) of precipitation annually, namely the Potwar Plateau and the upper Indus plain. Such areas where dry farming is practiced are referred to as barani. Later, large areas of uncultivated land in the Indus River plain of the southern Punjab were irrigated by canals and populated by colonists drawn from other parts of the province. Referred to as the Canal Colony, that area now forms the richest agricultural region of the country.

Agricultural wealth is concentrated in those barani areas around Lahore that have benefited from irrigation, together with the Canal Colony areas and Sind province. Those regions contain most of the rural population of Pakistan and produce more than half of the country’s wheat and virtually all of its cotton and rice. Landholdings are larger in the Canal Colony areas of the Punjab and in Sind.

Elsewhere, in the overpopulated and poor districts of the barani region that do not benefit from irrigation, holdings are exceedingly small and fragmented. In those districts, there is great pressure to migrate from the villages in order to find employment in towns, to enlist in the armed forces, or to seek work abroad, particularly in the Persian Gulf states of the Middle East.

Rural settlement
About two-thirds of the rural population of Pakistan lives in nucleated villages or hamlets (i.e., in compact groups of dwellings). Sometimes, as is generally the case in the North-West Frontier Province, the houses are placed in a ring with windowless outer walls, so that each complex resembles a protected fortress with a few guarded entrances. Dispersed habitation patterns in the form of isolated single homesteads are rare, occurring only in a few mountainous areas. But it is not uncommon to find numerous satellite hamlets of varying sizes near larger villages; such hamlets are occupied either by a landlord (along with his family, servants, and sharecroppers) or else by members of an extended family group living together in adjoining houses. The spread of tube wells (driven wells) in the Punjab has increased the tendency for such dispersal, for people often prefer to live near their tube wells in order to guard the valuable machinery. The concept of village, therefore, often tends to be equivalent to that of the mawzaʿ (an area of land that, together with a village and its satellite hamlets, forms a unit in land-revenue records). It is difficult to speak of an average size of village, for patterns of habitation are complex. Most groups of dwellings have a minimum of a dozen or a score of houses, and there are usually a few hundred dwellings in each “village.” Large villages rarely have populations exceeding 2,500 persons.

Three basic types of village layout are to be found. Most of the older settlements are of the “spiderweb” form, having at least one focal point, such as the village mosque, some shops, or a well from which lanes radiate. A few villages follow the contours of hill slopes and other natural features. In the Canal Colony areas, villages are of a regular rectangular pattern, with a well, a mosque, and a school, as well as the house of the village headman, at the centre and with the houses being arranged in a series of concentric rectangles. Houses are built from available local materials; the vast majority are of adobe, a material that is not only cheap and reasonably durable in the dry climate but also provides better insulation from extremes of heat and cold than brick or stone. Houses usually have walled courtyards where animals are tethered and where people sleep in the open in the hot summer.

Urban settlement
The urban population of Pakistan represents about two-fifths of the total. Two cities have a dominating position—Karachi, the capital of Sind province (and of the country until 1959), and Lahore, the capital of Punjab. Since the 1960s, government policy has been directed toward the dispersal of industry, which had become heavily concentrated in Karachi. As a consequence, urban growth has been more evenly distributed among several cities. Karachi remains the principal port and centre of commerce and industry.

Rapid and unplanned urban expansion has been paralleled by a deterioration in living conditions, particularly in the housing conditions of lower-income groups. Many urban households are unable to pay rent for the cheapest form of available housing and live in shacks in makeshift communities known collectively as katchi abadis. Water supply and sewerage systems are inadequate, and in many areas residents have to share communal water taps. Inadequate urban transport is also a major problem.

Karachi experienced serious ethnic conflict between the muhajir immigrants and Sindhis and (since the late 1980s) between the Sindhis and Punjabis. Discouraged by civil strife, businesses—both industrial and commercial—began to relocate to Punjab, particularly in and around Lahore. After Karachi and Lahore, the principal cities are Faisalabad and Rawalpindi in Punjab and Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province. Quetta is the capital and largest city of Balochistan. The national capital, Islamabad, adjoins Rawalpindi.

Demographic trends
Pakistan is one of the most populous countries in the world, though the population is distributed rather unevenly. More than half of the population is in Punjab; on the other hand, Balochistan, the largest province in terms of area, has significant areas with virtually no settled population. Likewise, within each province, the population further pools in various areas. Much of the population of Balochistan, for instance, is concentrated in the area of Quetta. The region around Karachi and the inhabited strip along the Indus River are the most densely settled areas in Sind province. Within Punjab the population density generally decreases from northeast to southwest. In the North-West Frontier Province the plain around Peshawar and Mardan is a high-density area. Broadly speaking, population density is greatest in fertile agricultural areas. Nomadism and transhumance, once common lifestyles in Pakistan, are now practiced by relatively few people.

The overwhelming demographic fact of Pakistani history is the enormous shift of population during the country’s partition from India. Millions of Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan, and about eight million immigrants (muhajirs)—then roughly one-fourth of the country’s population—arrived from India, bringing their own language (mostly Urdu), culture, and identity. Most settled in Sind province, but muhajir pockets can be found throughout the country.

The major demographic shifts in the postindependence period have been movements within the country (largely to urban areas), the exodus of large numbers of Pakistanis to live and work abroad, and the influx of large numbers of Afghan refugees into the country beginning in the early 1980s.

The movement of people to urban areas and abroad can be tied to an overall increase in population—which has strained resources, particularly in rural areas—largely due to improved health care and dietary intake. Infant mortality has decreased, and life expectancy has increased; some two-fifths of the population is under 15 years of age. The economies of most parts of the countryside have been unable to absorb the increased population, and many Pakistanis have turned to the cities in search of jobs. Though Karachi and Lahore are the only two cities that can properly be called megalopolises, all of the cities of Pakistan have grown rapidly in size and population since independence. Even in the cities, however, resources have been strained. Beginning in the oil boom of the 1970s, large numbers of Pakistanis traveled to the Persian Gulf states seeking work. Most found employment as unskilled labourers, traveling without their families and returning home at the end of their contracted time. Also, a great many Pakistanis—mostly among the educated professional classes—emigrated to the West, either to the United States or to the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, but with advances in modern communications they often have kept in close contact with other family members still in Pakistan.

During the 1980s millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan during the Afghan War. Most of them settled along the two countries’ shared border, although a significant number migrated to larger cities. It was only with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in the late 1980s and, more importantly, the end of Taliban rule there in 2001 that significant numbers of Afghans were repatriated. Nevertheless, a great many have remained in refugee camps in the border areas as well as in Pakistan’s cities.

Economy
After several experiments in economic restructuring, Pakistan currently operates a mixed economy in which state-owned enterprises account for a large portion of gross domestic product (GDP). The country has experimented with several economic models during its existence. At first, Pakistan’s economy was largely based on private enterprise, but significant sectors of it were nationalized beginning in the early 1970s, including financial services, manufacturing, and transportation. Further changes were made in the 1980s, under the military government of Zia ul-Haq. Specifically, an “Islamic” economy was introduced, which outlawed practices forbidden by Sharīʿah (Muslim law)—e.g., charging interest on loans (ribā )—and mandated such traditional religious practices as the payment of zakāt (tithe) and ʿushr (land tax). Though portions of the Islamic economy have remained in place, the state began in the 1990s to privatize—in whole or in part—large sectors of the nationalized economy.

The economy, which was primarily agricultural at the time of independence, has become considerably diversified. Agriculture, now no longer the largest sector, contributes roughly one-fifth of GDP, while manufacturing provides about one-sixth. Trade and services, which combined constitute the largest component of the economy, have grown considerably. In terms of the structure of its economy, Pakistan resembles the middle-income countries of East and Southeast Asia more than the poorer countries of the Indian subcontinent. Economic performance compares favourably with that of many other developing countries; Pakistan has maintained a sustained and fairly steady annual growth rate since independence.

At the same time, there has been a relentless increase in population, so that, despite a real growth in the economy, output per capita has risen only slowly. This slow growth in per capita income has not coincided with a high incidence of absolute poverty, however, which has been considerably smaller in Pakistan than in other South Asian countries. Nonetheless, a significant proportion of the population lives below the poverty line, and the relative prosperity of the industrialized regions around Karachi and Lahore contrasts sharply with the poverty of the Punjab’s barani areas, the semiarid Balochistan, the North-West Frontier Province, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Overall, approximately one-fourth of Pakistan is arable land, although only small fractions of that are in permanent crops (about 1 percent) or permanent pastures (6 percent). Roughly 5 percent of the country is forested. Nonetheless, agriculture, forestry, and fishing still provide employment for the single largest proportion of the labour force and a livelihood for an even larger segment of the population. Land-reform programs implemented in 1959, 1972, and 1977 began to deal with the problems of large-scale, often absentee ownership of land and the excessive fragmentation of small holdings by introducing maximum and minimum area limits. The commercialization of agriculture has also resulted in fairly large-scale transfers of land, concentrating its ownership among middle-class farmers.

The attention given to the agricultural sector in development plans has brought about some radical changes in centuries-old farming techniques. The construction of tube wells for irrigation and salinity control, the use of chemical fertilizers and scientifically selected seeds, and the gradual introduction of farm machinery have all contributed to the notable increase in productivity. As a consequence, Pakistan experienced what became known as the Green Revolution during the late 1960s, leaving a surplus that was partly shipped to East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and partly exported; self-sufficiency in wheat—the national staple—was achieved by about 1970. Cotton production also rose, which added to the domestic production of textiles and edible cottonseed oils. Rice is the second major food staple and one of the country’s important export crops. Large domestic sugar subsidies have been primarily responsible for an increase in sugarcane production. Other crops include chickpeas, pearl millet (bajra), corn (maize), rapeseed, and mustard, as well as a variety of garden crops, including onions, peppers, and potatoes. Pakistan benefits greatly from having two growing seasons, rabi (spring harvest) and kharif (fall harvest).

The cultivation and transportation of illicit narcotics remains a large sector of the informal economy. Pakistan is one of the world’s leading producers of opium poppy (for the production of heroin) and also produces or transports cannabis (as hashish) from Afghanistan for local markets and for reexport abroad.

Animal husbandry provides important domestic and export products. Livestock includes cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, and poultry. These animals provide meat and dairy products for local consumption, as well as wool for the carpet industry and for export and hides and skins for the leather industry. The contribution of forestry to national income remains negligible, but that of fisheries has risen. Fishing activity is centred in Karachi, and part of the catch of lobster and other shellfish is exported.

River water is used in large parts of the country to irrigate agricultural areas. The Balochistan plateau has a remarkable indigenous method of irrigation called the qanāt (or kārīz) system, which consists of underground channels and galleries that collect subsoil water at the foot of hills and carry it to fields and villages. The water is drawn from the channels through shafts that are sunk into the fields at suitable intervals. Because the channels are underground, the loss of water by evaporation is minimized.

Resources and power
Minerals
The exploration of Pakistan’s mineral wealth is far from complete, but some two dozen different types of exploitable minerals have been located. Iron ore deposits are mostly of poor quality. The most extensive known reserves are situated in the Kalabagh region, in western Punjab. Other low-grade ore reserves have been found in Hazara, in the North-West Frontier Province. Small reserves of high-grade iron ore have been identified in Chitral and in the Chilghazi area (located in northwestern Balochistan), as well as in the North-West Frontier Province. Deposits of copper ore equaling or surpassing the reserves of iron ore have been found, but most sites remain unexploited. There are enormous reserves of easily exploited limestone that form the basis of a growing cement industry, a major component of the manufacturing sector. Other minerals that are exploited include chromite (mostly for export), barite, celestine (strontium sulfate), antimony, aragonite (calcium carbonate), gypsum, rock salt, and marble and granite.

Hydrocarbons and power
Pakistan has modest quantities of petroleum and some large natural gas fields. The first oil discovery was made in 1915. Pakistan intensified the search for oil and natural gas in the 1980s and was rewarded with the discovery of a number of new oil fields in the Potwar Plateau region and in Sind. A number of fields have been developed, particularly near Badin, in Sind. Despite the continued search for new and richer fields (including some offshore exploration and drilling), Pakistan has had to import increasing amounts of oil from abroad to satisfy growing consumption, making the country vulnerable to fluctuations in world oil markets. Most imports take the form of crude oil, which is refined into various products. Pakistan’s refinery capacity well exceeds its domestic crude production. The oil sector is regulated by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, and international oil companies are authorized to operate in Pakistan in cooperation with domestic companies.

The largest natural gas deposits are at Sui (on the border between Balochistan and Punjab), discovered in 1953. A smaller field, at Mari, in northeast Sind province, was found in 1957. A number of smaller natural gas fields subsequently have been discovered in various areas. A network of gas pipelines links the fields with the main consumption areas: Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, and Islamabad. Although proven reserves are large, they have not kept pace with domestic consumption.

Coal mining is one of the country’s oldest industries. The quality of the coal is poor, and the mines have been worked below capacity because of the difficulty of access; despite ample reserves, the country regularly imports coal.

Although energy production has grown faster than the economy as a whole, it has not kept pace with demand, and as a result there are shortages of fuel and electric power. The bulk of power requirements are provided by thermal plants (coal, oil, and natural gas), with most of the remainder provided by hydroelectric installations.

The generation, transmission, and distribution of power is the responsibility of the Pakistani Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), a public-sector corporation. WAPDA lost its monopoly over generation after Pakistan entered into an agreement in 1989 with a consortium of foreign firms to produce power from giant oil-fired plants located at Hub, near Karachi; the plants were completed in 1997.

Great progress, however, has been made in the development of the hydroelectric potential of Pakistan’s rivers. A giant hydroelectric plant is in operation at the Mangla Dam, on the Jhelum River in Azad Kashmir (the part of Kashmir under Pakistani administration). Another such source is the giant Tarbela Dam, on the Indus River.

Pakistan has two nuclear power plants, the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (completed 1972) and the Chashma-1 plant (2000), at Kundian, in Punjab. Construction began on a second plant at the Chashma location in 2005. Nuclear power provides only a tiny proportion of the country’s total energy production.

Manufacturing
Mining and quarrying account for a small percentage of GDP and of total employment. Manufacturing, however, constitutes a healthy proportion. The beginning of the main industrialization effort dates to the cessation of trade between India and Pakistan in 1949, soon after the two countries gained independence. Initially it was based on the processing of raw agricultural materials for domestic consumption and for export. This led to the construction of cotton textile mills—a development that now accounts for a large part of the total employment in industry. Woolen textiles, sugar, paper, tobacco, and leather industries also provide many jobs for the industrial labour force.

The growing trade deficit in the mid-1950s compelled the government to cut down on imports, which encouraged the establishment of a number of import-substitution industries. At first these factories produced mainly consumer goods, but gradually they came to produce intermediate goods and a range of capital goods, including chemicals, fertilizers, and light engineering products. Nevertheless, Pakistan still has to import a large proportion of the capital equipment and raw materials required by industry. In the 1970s and early ’80s Pakistan set up an integrated iron and steel mill at Pipri, near Karachi, with the financial and technical assistance of the Soviet Union. A new port, Port Qāsim (officially Port Muḥammad Bin Qāsim), was built to bring iron ore and coal for the mill.

Initially Karachi was the centre of Pakistan’s industrialization effort, but in the late 1960s and early ’70s Lahore and the cities around it began to industrialize rapidly. Karachi’s ethnic problems in the late 1980s and early ’90s accelerated this process, and Punjab increasingly became Karachi’s competitor in industrial output.

Major manufactured products include jute and cotton textiles, cement, vegetable ghee, cigarettes, and bicycles. Although the country still imports most of its motor vehicles, some Pakistani firms have entered into contracts with foreign companies to produce automobiles, motorcycles, and industrial tractors domestically.

Finance
Finance contributes a relatively small value to GDP, though its growth rate in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has been considerable. Pakistan has a variety of state banks, state-run banks (though more-recent trends have been toward privatizing these), scheduled (i.e., commercial) banks, private banks, and foreign banks. Noteworthy has been the spread of banks that operate within the principles of Islamic law. A number of such institutions were established beginning in the 1980s, and, more recently, several established Western-style banks have opened up divisions offering Islamic banking services.

Pakistan has a fairly well-developed system of financial services. The State Bank of Pakistan (1948) has overall control of the banking sector, acts as banker to the central and provincial governments, and administers official monetary and credit policies, including exchange controls. It has the sole right to issue currency (the Pakistani rupee) and has custody of the country’s gold and foreign-exchange reserves.

Pakistan has a number of commercial banks, called scheduled banks, which are subject to strict State Bank requirements as to paid-up capital and reserves. They account for the bulk of total deposits, collected through a network of branch offices. A few specialist financial institutions provide medium- and long-term credit for industrial, agricultural, and housing purposes and include the Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation (1957; since 2001, PICIC Commercial Bank, Ltd.), the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan (1961), the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (1961), and the House Building Finance Corporation (1952). There are a number of private banks, many of which operate from Karachi. Habib Bank, Ltd., is one of the oldest. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was founded in Pakistan in 1972; BCCI’s collapse in 1991 precipitated a major international banking scandal.

The Karachi Stock Exchange (Guarantee) Limited (1947), Lahore Stock Exchange (Guarantee) Limited (1970), and Islamabad Stock Exchange (Guarantee) Limited (1989) are the largest such institutions in the country; each deals in stocks and shares of registered companies. The Investment Corporation of Pakistan (1966) and the National Investment Trust (1962) were founded by the state to help channel domestic savings into the capital market; both have since been partly privatized. As part of the development of the “Islamic” economy, interest-free banking and financing practices have been instituted in many specialized banks.

Trade
Trade has grown into one of the major sectors of the Pakistani economy and employs a significant proportion of the workforce. Although there has been a trend toward increasing exports, the country has had a chronic annual trade deficit, with imports often outstripping exports. Over the years, important changes have taken place in the composition of foreign trade. In particular, while the proportion of total exports from primary commodities, including raw cotton, has fallen, the share of manufactures has greatly increased. But the bulk of the manufactured products coming into the export trade consists of cotton goods, so that Pakistan remains as dependent as ever on its leading cash crop. The other manufactures exported come mostly from industries based on agriculture, such as leather and leather goods and carpets; exports of rice and petroleum products are also important. The shift toward manufactured agricultural exports, which have a higher added-value content than primary commodities, has been encouraged by the government. The trade deficits and shortages of foreign exchange have made it necessary for the government to restrict imports and to provide financial incentives to promote export trade. Major imports consist of machinery, chemicals and chemical products, crude oil, refined petroleum, food and edible oils, and motor vehicles. Pakistan’s most important trading partners are the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and China.

Services
The government has traditionally been a major employer, and, just as in other former colonial countries with a well-developed civil service, government positions are coveted for the financial security that they offer. Combined with public administration, defense, construction, and public utilities, services account for roughly one-fourth of GDP and employ about one-fifth of the workforce. Tourism traditionally has contributed little to the economy, but the country has consistently attracted a number of tourists who engage in “adventure” tours, particularly in the high mountains of the north, where the Karakoram Highway provides access to some of the loftier peaks for hikers and climbers. Likewise, the ruins at Mohenjo-daro and Taxila—designated UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1980—attract a number of interested outsiders each year.

Remittances from workers abroad constitute a large (though extremely difficult to measure) source of revenue. At any given time there are several million Pakistanis working abroad, throughout the world; officially, the income that they send home (as well as money remitted by Pakistani immigrants abroad) amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Much income is likely transferred through unofficial channels—either by hand or through the services of the traditional system of money exchanges known as hawala—and the total amount of money remitted from abroad is likely much higher than official statements.

Labour and taxation
The trade union movement dates to the late 19th century, but, because Pakistan’s industrial sector (inherited at independence) was so small, organized labour as a proportion of total employment is still in the minority. This has not prevented it from becoming an important political force. Before the 1971 civil war, there were considerably more than 1,000 registered unions, most of them organized within individual establishments. Countrywide unions based on a common craft or a particular industry were very few. Most of the unions were situated in the urban centres and were affiliated with one of three national labour confederations. After the civil war and the emergence of Bangladesh, the number of unions declined to a few hundred, affiliated with one umbrella organization, the Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions.

Because of the country’s relatively high rates of unemployment, employers have remained in a strong position, and many of them have been able to bypass working agreements and laws. Only the unions in the larger industries (e.g., cotton textiles) have had the necessary coherence to fight back. Labour laws introduced in 1972 met some of the demands (job security, social welfare, pensions) of organized labour but also sought to control political activity by industrial workers. Labour union activity was severely constrained by the military government of 1977–88 but was subsequently revived during the first administration (1988–91) of Benazir Bhutto.

Taxation accounts for the main source of government revenue: the government levies sales taxes, income taxes, customs duties, and excise taxes. Sales and income taxes account for the largest proportion of all revenues, with nontax receipts constituting a large portion of the balance. Government expenditures exceed revenues by a large amount. Income tax rates have been comparatively high, but the tax base has been so small that individual and corporate income tax revenues have remained substantially lower than excise, sales, and other indirect taxes. The government has been able to maintain heavy expenditures on development and defense because of the inflow of foreign aid and worker remittances.

Transportation and telecommunications
Buses and trucks have displaced rail as the principal long-distance carrier. A program of deregulation of the road transport industry was undertaken in 1970 and encouraged the entry of a large number of independent operators into the sector. Trucks and tractor-drawn trailers have largely displaced the traditional bullock cart for local transport of produce to markets, but in many rural areas animal power is still crucial to economic survival. Air transport of cargo and passengers has become increasingly important.

All the main cities are connected by major highways, and Pakistan is connected to each of its neighbours, including China, by road. The great majority of roads are paved. The country’s main rail route runs more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) north from Karachi to Peshawar, via Lahore and Rawalpindi. Another main line branches northwestward from Sukkur to Quetta.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), established in 1954, is the national carrier; until the mid-1990s it was the sole domestic carrier, but since then a number of small regional airlines and charter services have been established. (PIA also runs international flights to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia, as well as to neighbouring Afghanistan.) The principal airports are located at Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Quetta, and Peshawar. Karachi, Port Qāsim, and Gwadar are the principal port cities; in addition, a number of small harbours along the Makran Coast handle the small boats that ply between Pakistan and the Persian Gulf states. In the early 1990s the limitations of the transportation system emerged as a major constraint on the modernization of the economy, prompting the government to undertake large-scale investments in the highway sector. Private entrepreneurs were invited to participate on the basis of a “build-operate-transfer” (BOT) approach, which subsequently became popular in other developing countries. (In the BOT system, private entrepreneurs build and operate infrastructure facilities such as ports, highways, and power plants and then recover their costs by charging tariffs from the users. Once the investors have recovered their outlay, the facility created is transferred to the government.)

Pakistan’s telephone system has developed and expanded since the first years of independence. Since 1988 the government has stimulated investment in telecommunications and prompted the development of an efficient national system. Pakistan Telecommunications Company, Ltd.—originally founded in 1947 as the state-run Pakistan Posts and Telegraph Department and partly privatized in 1994—is the country’s largest carrier. Despite increasing capacity, standard telephone service is generally sparse, with only a fraction of households having a land line and rural areas generally still without any standard services. Mobile phone usage, however, has increased dramatically. Pakistani networks are connected with the outside world via satellite and by fibre-optic lines. The use of personal computers is low in relation to the population, but access to the Internet has grown significantly.

Government and society
In 1947 the newly independent Pakistan consisted of two distinct parts: the smaller but more densely populated East Pakistan, centred on the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta region, and the much larger West Pakistan, occupying the northwestern portion of the Indian subcontinent. The country’s government, functioning under a modified 1935 Government of India Act, was associated with a British-inherited parliamentary system, containing a strong central government as well as governments in the several provinces that also gave it a federal form. However, in 1971, after the country had experienced more than two decades of turbulent politics, the eastern region seceded and established itself as the independent state of Bangladesh. In the aftermath of that event, Pakistan (now reduced to the former West Pakistan) faced a number of political and economic problems and uncertainties about its future.

Several seemingly irreconcilable domestic conflicts have left their mark on the politics of Pakistan. The first of these occurred at the highest levels of leadership, involving the key political actors from the political parties, the higher bureaucracy, and the upper echelon of the armed forces (notably the Pakistani army). Constitutions in Pakistan have been less about limiting the power of authority and more a legal justification for arbitrary action. The country’s several constitutions reflected more the preeminence of the person holding the highest office than the restrictions imposed on authority, and the national government consistently has been more personalized than institutionalized. The viceregalism of the colonial past has haunted Pakistan from its inception, and struggles for power are therefore more personal than constitutional. In addition, given the ever-present external threat posed by India, the military not only improved and modernized its fighting capability, but it also felt compelled to intervene in the country’s political affairs when it perceived that civilian leadership was unable to govern. The result has been several military administrations (1958–69, 1969–71, 1977–88, and 1999–2008), which ruled Pakistan for roughly half of its history.

A second conflict has taken place between regional groups. The regions that originally made up Pakistan had to be fitted into a design not of their own choosing. The different cultural and historical circumstances, as well as natural and human endowments of those regions, have tested the unity of Pakistan time and again; the loss of East Pakistan demonstrated the failure of Pakistan’s leaders to orchestrate a workable program of national integration. Even after that event, Pakistan has had difficulty reconciling rival claims. Punjab, being the largest and most significant province, has always been perceived as imposing its will on the others, and even attempts at establishing quotas for governmental and nongovernmental opportunities and resources have not satisfied the discontented. The demands for an independent Sindhu Desh for the Sindhis and a Pakhtunistan for the Pathans, and the violently rebellious circumstances in Balochistan in the 1980s and since 2002, illustrate the nature and depth of the problem of national integration. Because these various struggles have been directed against centralized authority, they have merged with the democratic struggle. But their express aims have been to secure greater regional representation in the bureaucratic and military establishment, especially in the higher echelons, and to achieve effective decentralization of powers within the federal system by emphasizing regional autonomy.

A third conflict sprang from the struggle over economic resources and development funds among the more-deprived regions and strata of the population. This resulted in a number of violent confrontations between the less-privileged segments of society and the state. Some of these confrontations, such as those in 1969 and 1977, led to the fall of constitutional government and the imposition of martial law.

A fourth conflict took place between the landed aristocracy that dominated Pakistan’s political and economic life for much of the country’s history and a new urban elite that began to assert itself in the late 1980s. One manifestation of this conflict was the struggle that broke out between Punjab provincial leaders and federal authorities in the late 1980s. Under the Islamic Democratic Alliance, the Punjab government continued to back the interests of the landed aristocracy, while the national government—headed by Benazir Bhutto, with a more liberal bent and a wider base of support—espoused the economic and social interests of urban groups and non-propertied classes. The two governments often clashed in the late 1980s, creating serious economic management problems. Issues regarding power sharing between the federal and provincial governments were largely ignored during the period of military rule in 1999–2008.

However, in the 21st century the success of any government in Pakistan—civilian or military—appeared to rest on the handling of what might be considered a fifth area of major conflict. Since 2001 the country has been confronted by a campaign of ceaseless terror, generally but not exclusively cast in religious terms, that has been mounted by religious forces opposed to secular modernism in all its forms. Government has always been mindful of the need to placate the religiously motivated populace, but finding a balance between those envisioning Pakistan as a theocratic state and those determined to pursue a liberal, progressive agenda has proved to be the most significant test. A climate of virtually irreconcilable forces has emerged, much of it manifested by external militant Islamic elements led by the al-Qaeda organization and a revived Afghan Taliban.

Constitutional framework
The task of framing a constitution was entrusted in 1947 to a Constituent Assembly that was also to function as the interim legislature under the 1935 Government of India Act, which was to be the interim constitution. Pakistan’s first constitution was enacted by the Constituent Assembly in 1956. It followed the form of the 1935 act, allowing the president far-reaching powers to suspend federal and provincial parliamentary government (emphasizing the viceregal tradition of British India). It also included a “parity formula,” by which representation in the National Assembly for East and West Pakistan would be decided on a parity, rather than population, basis. (A major factor in the political crisis of 1970–71 was abandonment of the parity formula and adoption of representation by population, giving East Pakistan an absolute majority in the National Assembly.)

In 1958 the constitution was abrogated, and martial law was instituted. A new constitution, promulgated in 1962, provided for the election of the president and national and provincial assemblies by something similar to an electoral college, composed of members of local councils. Although a federal form of government was retained, the assemblies had little power, which was, in effect, centralized through the authority of governors acting under the president. In April 1973 Pakistan’s third constitution (since the 1935 act) was adopted by the National Assembly; it was suspended in 1977. In March 1981 a Provisional Constitutional Order was promulgated, providing a framework for government under martial law. Four years later a process was initiated for reinstating the constitution of 1973. By October 1985 a newly elected National Assembly had amended the constitution, giving extraordinary powers to the president, including the authority to appoint any member of the National Assembly as prime minister.

With the end of military rule in 1988 and following elections to the National Assembly held in November of that year, the new president used those powers to appoint a prime minister to form a civilian government under the amended 1973 constitution. In 1997 the prime minister pushed through two significant changes to the constitution. The first revoked the president’s power to remove a sitting government, and the second gave the premier authority to dismiss from parliament any member not voting along party lines—effectively eliminating the National Assembly’s power to make a vote of no confidence. In 1999 a military government again came to power, and the constitution was suspended. The chief executive of that government initially ruled by decree and was made president in 2001. In 2002 the constitution was reinstated following a national referendum, though it included provisions (under the name Legal Framework order [LFO]) that restored presidential powers removed in 1997; most provisions of the LFO were formally incorporated into the constitution in 2003.

The amended constitution provides for a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government; both must be Muslims. According to the constitution, the president is elected for a term of five years by the National Assembly, the Senate, and the four provincial assemblies. The prime minister is elected by the National Assembly. The president acts on the advice of the prime minister. Universal adult suffrage is practiced.

The National Assembly has 342 members, each of whom serves a five-year term. Of these, 272 seats are filled by direct popular election; 262 are for Muslim candidates, and 10 are for non-Muslims. Of the remaining seats, 60 are reserved for women, who are chosen by the major parties; in 2008 the assembly elected its first female speaker. The Senate has 100 members, each serving a six-year term. A portion of the senators are chosen by the provincial assemblies; others are appointed. One-third of the senators relinquish their seats every two years.

Local government
Pakistan’s four provinces are divided into divisions, districts, and subdistricts (tehsils, or tahsils). These units are run by a hierarchy of administrators, such as the divisional commissioner, the deputy commissioner at the district level, and the subdivisional magistrate, subdivisional officer, or tehsildar (tahsildar) at the tehsil level. The key level is that of the district, where the deputy commissioner, although in charge of all branches of government, shares power with the elected chairman of the district council. During the period of British rule, the deputy commissioner was both the symbol and embodiment of the central government in remote locations. Expected to serve the constituents in numerous ways, the officer’s responsibilities ranged from that of magistrate dispensing justice to record keeper, as well as provider of advice and guidance in managing the socioeconomic condition. Those multiple roles have varied little since independence, but increasing emphasis has been placed on self-help programs for the rural populace.

In addition to the provinces, Pakistan has the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (seven agencies along the Afghan border, adjacent to the North-West Frontier Province), which ostensibly are overseen by agents responsible to the federal government; the Islamabad Capital Territory; and a number of tribal areas that are administered by the provincial governments. The areas of Kashmir under Pakistani control are administered directly by the central government.

Justice
Under the constitution there is a formal division between the judiciary and the executive branches of government. The judiciary consists of the Supreme Court, the provincial high courts, and (under their jurisdiction and supervision) district courts that hear civil cases and sessions courts that hear criminal cases. There is also a magistracy that deals with cases brought by the police. The district magistrate (who, as deputy commissioner, also controls the police) hears appeals from magistrates under him; appeals may go from him to the sessions judge. The Supreme Court is a court of record. It has original, appellate, and advisory jurisdictions and is the highest court in the land. At the time of independence, Pakistan inherited legal codes and acts that have remained in force, subject to amendment. The independence of the judiciary has been tested at times, most notably in 2007, when the president replaced the chief justice and several other Supreme Court justices who challenged his constitutional legitimacy.

The judicial system also has a religious dimension; a reorientation to Islamic tenets and values was designed to make legal redress inexpensive and accessible to all persons. A complete code of Islamic laws was instituted, and the Federal Shariat Court, a court of Islamic law (Sharīʿah), was set up in the 1980s; the primary purpose of this court is to ascertain whether laws passed by parliament are congruent with the precepts of Islam. The Sharīʿah system operates alongside the more secular largely Anglo-Saxon system and legal tradition.

Political process
The role of Islam in the political and cultural unification of Pakistan has been controversial. Some factions have argued that Islamic ideology is the only cement that can bind together the country’s culturally diverse peoples. Opposing factions have argued that the insistence on Islamic ideology, in opposition to regional demands expressed in secular and cultural idiom, has alienated regional groups and eroded national unity.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was formed in 1968 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, working with a number of liberal leftists who wanted Pakistan to disregard the idiom of religion in politics in favour of a program of rapid modernization of the country and the introduction of a socialist economy. The PPP emerged as the majority party in West Pakistan in the elections of 1970 (though the Awami League in East Pakistan won the largest number of legislative seats). Following the disruption of the ensuing war, which produced the independent country of Bangladesh from East Pakistan, Bhutto was called to form a government in 1972. The PPP was suppressed under the military government of 1977–88 but returned to power in 1988–90 and 1993–96 under the leadership of Bhutto’s daughter Benazir. In 2008, after the nine-year period of military rule, the party joined in a civilian coalition government.

The Muslim League, formed in 1906 in what is now Bangladesh, had spearheaded the Pakistan independence movement under Mohammed Ali Jinnah. However, by the time of the military coup in 1958 it had endured many setbacks and much fragmentation, and in 1962 it splintered into two parts, the Conventionist Pakistan Muslim League and the Council Muslim League. In the elections of 1970 it almost disappeared as a political party, but it was resurrected in 1985 and became the most important component of the Islamic Democratic Alliance, which took over Punjab’s administration in 1988. Since then, Muslim League factions have been associated with powerful personalities (e.g., Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf).

The Islamic Assembly (Jamāʿat-e Islāmī), founded in 1941 by Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī (Maududi), commands a great deal of support among the urban lower-middle classes (as well as having great influence abroad). Two other religious parties, the Assembly of Islamic Clergy (Jamīʿat ʿUlamāʾ-e Islām) and the Assembly of Pakistani Clergy (Jamīʿat ʿUlamāʾ-e Pakistan), have strong centres of support, the former in Karachi and the latter in the rural areas of the North-West Frontier Province. Ethnic interests are served by organizations such as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (formerly the Muhajir Qaumi Movement) in Karachi and Hyderabad, the Sindhi National Front in Sind, and the Balochistan Students Union in Balochistan.

Security
Pakistan’s military has been led from inception by a highly trained and professional officer corps that has not hesitated, as a body, to involve itself in politics. The military consists of an army (the largest of the uniformed services), air force, and navy, as well as various paramilitary forces. Each of the services is headed by a chief of staff, and the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff is the senior officer of the military hierarchy.

The Pakistani military is one of the largest and best-trained in the world. Troops serve on a voluntary basis, and there is seldom a shortage of manpower. Military life in Pakistan is viewed as prestigious, and soldiers both active and retired can expect numerous perks and benefits from service. Enlisted personnel are given the chance to improve themselves through study and education, and officers are trained through the service academy or through several of the country’s professional colleges.

The army is extremely well supplied, having devoted much of its considerable resources to the domestic production of weapons. The army has several thousand main battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and artillery pieces (both towed and self-propelled). The army also fields multiple-launch rocket systems and several short-range missile systems. The naval fleet consists of a variety of relatively small surface crafts (destroyers, frigates, missile craft, and patrol boats), as well as a small submarine fleet and an air arm. The air force flies several squadrons of high-performance fighter and ground-attack aircraft and a number of support and cargo planes.

Pakistan’s military-industrial complex is large and well-funded. The country has developed its own main battle tanks and surface naval craft—generally on designs contracted from foreign corporations—and has fielded its own missile systems, several of which appear capable of delivering unconventional payloads. Pakistan announced its status as a country with nuclear weapons by detonating several devices in 1998. The nuclear-weapons program has always been the special preserve of the Pakistani army, although its scientists and technicians are drawn primarily from civilian life.

Internal security is provided by a variety of local and provincial police departments, as well as by paramilitary forces such as the Pakistan Rangers, whose task is largely to provide border security. A number of paramilitary groups, such as the fabled Khyber Rifles, are officially part of the army but frequently engage in security work, such as combating terrorists. The Inter-Service Intelligence directorate is the country’s largest intelligence collection body, and it has often been extremely successful in influencing government policy.

Health and welfare
Although Pakistan has made progress in improving health conditions, a large part of the population does not receive modern medical care. There are insufficient numbers of doctors and nurses, especially in rural areas. Sanitation facilities are also inadequate; only a small percentage of the population has access to safe drinking water and sanitary sewage disposal facilities. Malaria, tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases, and intestinal diseases are among the leading causes of death. Drug addiction is an increasingly serious problem; although drug use is reported most commonly among urban literate males, many others (for whom documentation is more difficult to compile) are also abusers.

Pakistan was among the first developing countries to establish a state-funded family planning program, which began in the early 1960s. The program ran into political difficulties in the late 1960s as a result of opposition by Islamic groups. The regimes of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia ul-Haq, and Benazir Bhutto gave family planning a relatively low priority. Consequently, Pakistan’s total fertility and population growth rates are relatively high by world standards—this despite the fact that infant and maternal mortality rates are also relatively high.

The zakāt and ushr taxes are used to provide social welfare funds, which go to provincial, division, and district committees for distribution among organizations engaged in social welfare activities or directly to needy persons. Zakāt funds are also used for scholarships. The development of a number of nongovernmental organizations in the country and the increasing use of private religious endowments to assist the needy have been increasing. Those efforts have been most notable in the fields of education and basic health care.

Housing
Existing housing stocks do not meet national needs, and demands for housing have far outpaced the ability of the economy to produce more living space. Sufficient housing, in fact, has not traditionally been a high priority of the government, although in 1987 it did establish a National Housing Authority with the goal of developing housing units for the country’s burgeoning low-income population. However, such attempts were abandoned in the 1990s for want of adequate resources. In 2001 a National Housing Policy was approved to review the status of nationwide housing and to identify sources of revenue, land availability, incentives to developers and contractors, and the conditions needed to make construction cost-effective.

There are three general classes of housing in Pakistan: pukka houses, built of substantial material such as stone, brick, cement, concrete, or timber; katchi (or kuchha [“ramshackle”]) houses, constructed of less-durable material (e.g., mud, bamboo, reeds, or thatch); and semi-pukka houses, which are a mix between the two. Housing stocks comprise an equal number of semi-pukka and katchi houses (about two-fifths each), and remaining houses (roughly one-fifth of the total) are the better-variety pukka houses. Urban areas are dominated by ramshackle neighbourhoods known locally as katchi abadis, which can be found in all cities. In such unplanned and unregulated areas, safe drinking water and proper sanitation are rare (as they are in rural areas), and the buildings themselves are often flimsy and unsafe. Throughout the country, roughly half of all urban residents live in such areas.

Pakistan’s housing problem increased dramatically with the devastating 2005 earthquake in the northern areas, where more than half a million houses were destroyed or severely damaged over a vast area. The Pakistani government quickly established the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), which received funding from the World Bank and a large number of other sources. In addition to constructing new earthquake-resistant houses and reinforcing existing structures, the ERRA is repairing roads and other infrastructure in the region.

Education
Pakistan’s literacy rate is substantially lower than that of many developing countries; roughly half of all adults are literate, the literacy rate being significantly higher for males than for females. A substantial proportion of those who are literate, however, have not had any formal education. Educational levels for women are much lower than those for men. The share of females in educational levels progressively diminishes above the primary school level.

Education in Pakistan is not compulsory. Since independence Pakistan has increased the number of primary and secondary schools, and the number of students enrolled has risen dramatically. Teacher training has been promoted by the government and by international agencies. Higher education is available at vocational schools, technical schools, and colleges throughout the country. The oldest university is the University of the Punjab (established 1882), and the largest institutions are Allama Iqbal Open University (1974), in Islamabad, the University of Peshawar (1950), and the University of Karachi (1950). Other universities established during the 20th century include Quaid-i-Azam University (1967; called the University of Islamabad until 1976), the North-West Frontier Province Agricultural University in Peshawar (1981), the International Islamic University in Islamabad (1980), the Aga Khan University in Karachi (1983), and the Lahore University for Management Sciences (1986). Most university classes are taught in Urdu or English.

Education suffered a major setback in the 1970s as a result of the nationalization of private schools and colleges. The reversal of that policy in the 1980s led to a proliferation of private institutions, particularly in the large cities. In the 1980s the government also began to focus on the Islamization of the curriculum and the increased use of Urdu as the medium of instruction. During that period there was also an increase in the number of madrassas (Islamic schools) established throughout the country, particularly in poorer areas. (The added incentive of such institutions has been that most are residential schools, providing room and board at no cost in addition to a free education.) Although many of these schools provide good quality education in religious as well as secular subjects, others are simply maktabs (primary schools) that provide no basic education, even for older students, beyond the memorization of scripture; a number of those—particularly schools found along the Afghan border—have been recruiting and training centres for jihadist groups.

The more-Westernized segments of the population prefer to send their children to private schools, which continue to offer Western-style education and instruction in English. A number of private schools offer college entrance examinations administered by educational agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom, and many graduates of these schools are educated abroad. The division of the educational system into a private Westernized section and a state-run Islamized section has thus caused social tensions and exacerbated the problem of “brain drain,” the emigration to the West of many of the better-educated members of the population.

Cultural life
Pakistan shares influences that have shaped the cultures of South Asia. There are thus wider regional similarities extending beyond the national boundaries; cultural ways in Pakistan are broadly similar to those experienced in large parts of Afghanistan and northern India. This entire region was deeply influenced by the Arabic-Persian culture that arrived with Muslim conquerors beginning roughly a millennium ago. On the other hand, the specific regional cultures of Pakistan present a picture of rich diversity, making it difficult to speak of a single Pakistani culture. Residents of the North-West Frontier Province, for example, lead lives similar to fellow Pashtuns in Afghanistan. In other parts of the country, Urdu-speaking muhajirs brought with them many cultural ways and values found among the Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim populations of northern India.

Daily life and social customs
Throughout Pakistan, as in most agrarian societies, family organization is strongly patriarchal, and most people live with large extended families, often in the same house or family compound. The eldest male, whether he is the father, grandfather, or paternal uncle, is the family leader and makes all significant decisions regarding the family and its members. Traditionally, a woman’s place in society has been secondary to that of men, and she has been restricted to the performance of domestic chores and to fulfilling the role of a dutiful wife and mother. However, in the Punjab, cotton picking is exclusively a woman’s job, and women may keep the money thus earned for their own purposes.

In wealthy peasant and landowner households and in urban middle-class families, the practice of keeping women in seclusion (purdah) is still common; on the rare occasions on which women set foot outside their houses, they must be veiled. Among the rural poor, women have duties on the farm as well as in the house and do not customarily observe purdah. Houses of those who practice purdah have a men’s section (mardānah) at the front of the house, so that visitors do not disturb the women, who are secluded in the women’s section (zanānah) in the rear. Women’s subordinate status in Pakistan also is evident in the practice of “honour killings,” in which a woman may be killed by a male relative if she is thought to have brought dishonour on the family or clan.

Among the wealthiest Pakistanis, Western education and modes of living have eliminated purdah, but, in general, even among that group, attitudes toward women in society and the family often have been viewed by outsiders as antiquated. Change has occurred most rapidly among the urban middle-income group, inspired by increasing access to the West as well as by the entry of women into the workforce and into government service. An increasing number of middle-class women have stopped observing purdah, and the education of women has been encouraged. Some women have gained distinction in the professions; some of Pakistan’s leading politicians, journalists, and teachers have been women, and a woman has served as prime minister and as speaker of parliament.

In traditional parts of Pakistan, social organization revolves around kinship rather than around the caste system that is used in India. The baradari (berādarī; patrilineage, literally “brotherhood”) is the most important social institution. Endogamy is widely practiced, often to a degree that would be considered inappropriate in Western society; the preferred marriage for a man within many Pakistani communities is with his father’s brother’s daughter, and among many other groups marriages are invariably within the baradari. The lineage elders constitute a council that adjudicates disputes within the lineage and acts on behalf of the lineage with the outside world—for example, in determining political allegiances. In contemporary Pakistan, the question of class distinction based on historic patterns of social interaction has become blurred by the tendency to pretend that one has lineage to a nobler ancestor. However, irrespective of the questionable authenticity of a claim to a particular title, the classification of social status persists.

Pakistani clothing styles are similar in many ways to those found in India. The shalwar-kamiz combination—a long knee-length shirt (kamiz, camise) over loose-fitting pants (shalwar)—is the most common traditional form of attire. As a more formal overgarment, men wear a knee-length coat known as a sherwani; women frequently wear a light shawl called a dupatta. Among conservative Muslim communities, women sometimes wear the burqa, a full-length garment that may or may not cover the face. In earlier generations, the fez hat was popular among Muslim men, but more often the woolen, boat-shaped Karakul hat (popularized by Mohammed Ali Jinnah) is associated with Pakistan; however, many other hat styles are worn, especially in tribal areas. Western clothes are popular among the urban young, and combinations of Western and Pakistani styles can be seen in the streets.

Pakistani cuisine also has affinities with that of India. Curry dishes are common, as are a variety of vegetables, including potatoes, eggplant, and okra. Each region (and, often, each household) has its own preferred mixture of spices—the term masala is used to describe such a mixture. In addition to the many spices that are also associated with other countries of South Asia, yogurt is a common ingredient. Favourite meats include chicken, mutton, and lamb. Lentils are a standard dish, and various types of wheat bread are the national staple. The most common breads are chapati (unleavened flat bread) and naan (slightly leavened). Pakistanis drink a great deal of hot tea (chai), and lassi (a type of yogurt drink), sherbet, and lemonade are popular. As in most Muslim countries, alcoholic beverages are considered culturally inappropriate, but there are several domestic breweries and distilleries.

Muslim Pakistanis celebrate the two major Islamic holidays, ʿĪd al-Fiṭr (which marks the end of Ramadan) and ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā (which marks the end of the hajj), as well as the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday (the religious holidays are based on a lunar calendar and vary from year to year). Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s birthday (December 25) is a celebrated holiday. Independence Day is August 14, and Pakistan Day is March 23 (celebrating the Lahore [Pakistan] Resolution of 1940). There are a number of other major and minor holidays.

The arts
Pakistan’s cultural heritage dates to more than 5,000 years ago, to the period of the Indus civilization. However, the emphasis on Islamic ideology has brought about a strong romantic identification with Islamic culture—not only that of the Indian subcontinent but of the broader Islamic world. Literature, notably poetry, is the richest of all Pakistani art forms; music and, especially, modern dance have received less attention. The visual arts too play little part in popular folk culture. Painting and sculpture, however, have made considerable progress as expressions of an increasingly sophisticated urban culture.

Pakistan shares with the other parts of South Asia the great Mughal heritage in art, literature, architecture, and manners. The ruins of Mohenjo-daro, the ancient city of Taxila, and the Rohtas Fort of Shīr Shah of Sūr are but a few of the places in Pakistan that have been named UNESCO World Heritage sites. The Mosque of the Pearls, Badshahi Mosque, and Shalimar Garden, all in Lahore, are among the country’s architectural gems.

Popular traditional folk dances include the bhangra (an explosive dance developed in Punjab) and khatak steps. The khatak is a martial dance of the tribal Pashtuns that involves energetic miming of warriors’ exploits. There are a number of traditional dances associated with women; these include a humorous song and dance called the giddha, a whirling dance performed by girls and young women called the kikli, and a form in which dancers snap their fingers and clap their hands while bounding in a circle. The luddi is a Punjabi dance usually performed by males, typically to celebrate a victory—formerly victory in a military conflict but now in a sports contest.

Music has long been a part of Pakistani culture, and the country was greatly influenced by the northern Indian tradition of Hindustani music. Traditional and local styles abound. The ghazal, a type of romantic poem, is often put to music. Ghazal singers such as Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali have developed a broad following at home and abroad. Qawwālī, a form of devotional singing associated with Sufism, is also widely practiced and has influenced a number of popular styles. One of its greatest adherents, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, became famous in Pakistan and the broader world. Traditional instruments include the sitar, rabab (a fiddlelike stringed instrument), and dhol (bass drum).

Western-style popular music has been slow to develop in Pakistan, although by the early 21st century there were a number of singers, both men and women, who were considered to be pop stars. Among these were the sibling duo Nazia Hassan and Zoheb Hassan, the crooner Alamgir, and the rock bands Vital Signs and Junoon, a group whose music was inspired by Sufism.

Poetry is a popular rather than an esoteric art, and public poetry recitations, called mushāʿirahs, are organized like musical concerts. Sir Muhammad Iqbal, one of the major forces behind the establishment of Pakistan (though he died a decade before the country’s founding), was a noted poet in Persian and Urdu. Pashto, Urdu, and Sindhi poets are regional and national heroes.

Traditional Punjabi theatre was generally a venue for lower-class street performers and tended to be of a comic, slapstick variety. Commercial theatre in northern India and Pakistan, however, did not appear until the mid-19th century, and then largely in the Urdu language and among the Parsi community. After partition most professional actors, directors, and writers in the Muslim community gravitated toward the theatre and cinema of India (one important exception being the renowned actress and singer Noor Jehan). The cinema is the most popular form of entertainment in Pakistan. Many feature films are produced each year, mostly in the Punjabi and Urdu languages, and Pakistanis have developed a devotion to movies produced in India despite the political differences between the two countries. Other noted film stars are Sultan Rahi (Sultan Muhammad) and Mohammad Ali and his wife, Zeba. The songs and music used in Pakistani films have a distinctive character and are often reproduced on records or digital discs and broadcast on the radio.

Cultural institutions
Pakistan’s long and rich history is reflected in the number of fine museums found there. The Lahore Museum (1894) has a splendid collection of arts and crafts, jewelry, and sculpture from various historical periods. The National Museum of Pakistan, in Karachi (1950), has a number of galleries, which include displays of objects from the Indus civilization and examples of Gandhara art. There are a number of archaeological museums and several private museums with specialized exhibits. The Taxila Institute of Asian Civilizations (founded 1997) was merged administratively with Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad in 2007. The National College of Arts (founded in 1872 as the Mayo School of Industrial Art) in Lahore is the only degree-granting institute of fine arts in the country. There are several private art galleries located in larger cities.

Sports and recreation
Cricket is a national favourite, and the country has produced some of the world’s best players, including Asif Iqbal and Imran Khan. The Pakistani national team won the World Cup in 1992 and has a number of victories in one-day international competitions. Cricket is governed by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Among team sports, only field hockey compares to cricket in popularity. The country has won World Cup and Olympic championships in field hockey several times. Squash is one of the most popular individual sports; Pakistan dominated world competition during the 1980s and ’90s, when Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan (who are not related) won a combined 14 World Open Championships.

Pakistan has competed in the Olympic Summer Games since 1948 (though the country boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). It has not been represented at the Winter Games. Almost all the country’s success has been in field hockey, including gold medal wins in 1960, 1968, and 1984.

Media and publishing
Government-owned radio and television traditionally have been used in an attempt to harness folk cultural traditions (especially in song, music, and drama) for political and nonpolitical purposes. In 2002 the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) was established to regulate and license privately owned radio, television, and satellite broadcasting facilities. Censorship, particularly of newspapers, is widespread, but Pakistanis have access to a variety of information media via satellite television (ownership of dishes is growing rapidly), the Internet, and newspapers and journals. Ownership of home computers is still quite low, but computers and Internet connections are available through Internet cafés in most cities. Newspapers, in particular those published in Urdu, Sindhi, and English, have a wide readership, and many are available in both print and online versions. Pakistan has numerous publishing houses, which print books mostly in English and Urdu.

Shahid Javed Burki
Lawrence Ziring

History

This section presents the history of Pakistan from the partition of British India (1947) to the present. For a discussion of the earlier history of the region, see India.

Background to partition
The call for establishing an independent Islamic state on the Indian subcontinent can be traced to a 1930 speech by Sir Muhammad Iqbal, the poet-philosopher and, at the time, president of the All India Muslim League (after Pakistan’s independence shortened to Muslim League). It was his argument that the four northwestern provinces and regions of British India—i.e., present-day Sind (Sindh), Balochistan, Punjab, and North-West Frontier Province—should one day be joined to become a free and independent Muslim state. The limited character of this proposal can be judged from its geographic rather than demographic dimensions. Iqbal’s Pakistan included only those Muslims residing in the Muslim-majority areas in the northwestern quadrant of the subcontinent. It ignored the millions of other Muslims living throughout the subcontinent, and it certainly did not take into account the Muslim majority of Bengal in the east. Moreover, Iqbal’s vision did not reflect the interests of others outside the Muslim League seeking liberation from colonial rule, and it did not conform to ideas reflected in Islamic expressions that spoke of a single Muslim community (ummah) or people (qawm), explaining in no small way why many other Muslim leaders—e.g., Abul Kalam Azad, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and, later, Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana—were less than enthused with his proposal.

Also missing at the time was a name to describe such a South Asian country where Muslims would be masters of their own destiny. That task fell to Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a young Muslim student studying at Cambridge in England, who best captured the poet-politician’s yearnings in the single word Pakistan. In a 1933 pamphlet, Now or Never, Rahmat Ali and three Cambridge colleagues coined the name as an acronym for Punjab, Afghania (North-West Frontier Province), Kashmir, and Indus-Sind, combined with the -stan suffix from Baluchistan (Balochistan). It was later pointed out that, when translated from Urdu, Pakistan could also mean “Land of the Pure.”

The Muslim League and Mohammed Ali Jinnah
Long before the British invaded and seized control of the subcontinent, Muslim armies had conquered the settled populations in the rolling flat land that stretched from the foothills of the Hindu Kush to the city of Delhi and the Indo-Gangetic Plain and eastward to Bengal. The last and most successful of the Muslim conquerors was the Mughal dynasty (1526–1857), which eventually spread its authority over virtually the entire subcontinent. British superiority coincided with Mughal decline, and, following a period of European successes and Mughal failures on the battlefield, the British brought an end to Mughal power. The last Mughal emperor was exiled following the failed Indian Mutiny of 1857–58.

Less than three decades after that revolt, the Indian National Congress was formed to give political representation to British India’s indigenous people. Although membership in the Congress was open to all, Hindu participants overwhelmed the Muslim members. The All India Muslim League, organized in 1906, aimed to give Muslims a voice so as to counter what was then perceived as the growing influence of the Hindus under British rule. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, earlier a prominent Muslim member of the Congress, assumed leadership of the league following his break with Congress leader Mohandas K. Gandhi. A firm believer in the Anglo-Saxon rule of law and a close associate of Iqbal, Jinnah questioned the security of the Muslim minority in an India dominated by essentially Hindu authority. Declaring Islam was endangered by a revived Hindu assertiveness, Jinnah and the league posited a “two-nation theory” that argued Indian Muslims were entitled to—and therefore required—a separate, self-governing state in a reconstituted subcontinent.

The British intention to grant self-government to India along the lines of British parliamentary democracy is evident in the Government of India Act of 1935. Up to that time, the question of Hindus and Muslims sharing in the governance of India was generally acceptable, although it was also acknowledged that Hindus more so than Muslims had accommodated themselves to British customs and the colonial manner of administration. Moreover, following the failed Indian Mutiny, Hindus were more eager to adopt British behaviours and ideas, whereas Indian Muslims bore the brunt of British wrath. The Mughal Empire was formally dissolved in 1858, and its last ruler was banished from the subcontinent. Believing they had been singled out for punishment, India’s Muslim population was reluctant to adopt British ways or take advantage of English educational opportunities. As a consequence of these different positions, Hindus advanced under British rule at the expense of their Muslim counterparts, and when Britain opened the civil service to the native population, the Hindus virtually monopolized the postings. Although influential Muslims such as Sayyid Ahmad Khan recognized the growing power imbalance and encouraged Muslims to seek European education and entry into the colonial civil service, they also realized that catching up to the more progressive and advantaged Hindus was an impossible task.

It was this juxtaposition of an emerging feeling of Hindu superiority and a sustained sense among Muslims of inferiority that the All India Muslim League addressed in its claim to represent the Muslims of India. Unlike other Muslim movements of the period, the Muslim League articulated the sentiments of the attentive and at the same time more moderate elements among India’s Muslim population. The Muslim League, with Jinnah as its spokesman, was also the preferred organization from the standpoint of British authority. Unlike Gandhi’s practices of civil disobedience, the lawyer Jinnah (who was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London) was more inclined to promote the rule of law in seeking separation from imperial rule. Jinnah, therefore, was more open to a negotiated settlement, and, indeed, his first instinct was to preserve the unity of India, albeit with adequate safeguards for the Muslim community. For Jinnah, the Lahore (later Pakistan) Resolution of 1940, which called for an independent Muslim state or states in India, did not at first imply the breakup of the Indian union.

World War II (1939–45) proved to be the catalyst for an unanticipated change in political power. Under pressure from a variety of popular national movements—notably those organized by the Congress and led by Gandhi—the war-weakened British were forced to consider abandoning India. In response to the Congress campaign that Britain quit India, London sent a mission headed by Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (the Cripps Mission) to New Delhi in early 1942 with the promise that Congress’s cooperation in the war effort would be rewarded with greater self-rule and possibly even independence when the war ended. Gandhi and the other Congress leaders, however, could not be appeased, and their insistence that Britain allow for a transfer of power while the war raged produced an impasse and the failure of the mission.

During that period, the Jinnah-led Muslim League was substantially less aggressive in seeking immediate British withdrawal. The differences between the two groups were not lost on Britain, and the eventual defeat of Germany and Japan set the scene for the drama that resulted in the partition of British India and the independence of Pakistan. The new postwar Labour Party government of Clement Attlee, succeeding the Conservative Winston Churchill government, was determined to terminate its authority in India. A cabinet mission led by William Pethick-Lawrence was sent in 1946 to discuss and possibly arrange the mechanisms for the transfer of power to indigenous hands. Throughout the deliberations the British had to contend with two prominent players: Gandhi and the Congress and Jinnah and the Muslim League. Jinnah laboured to find a suitable formula that addressed the mutual and different needs of the subcontinent’s two major communities. When Pethick-Lawrence’s mission proved unequal to the task of reconciling the parties, the last chance for a compromise solution was lost. Each of the major actors blamed the other for the breakdown in negotiations, with Jinnah insisting on the realization of the “two-nation theory.” The goal now was nothing less than the creation of a sovereign, independent Pakistan.

Birth of the new state
Like India, Pakistan achieved independence as a dominion within the Commonwealth in August 1947. However, the leaders of the Muslim League rejected Lord Mountbatten, the last British viceroy of India, to be Pakistan’s first governor-general, or head of state—in contrast to the Congress, which made him India’s chief executive. Wary of Britain’s machinations and desirous of rewarding Jinnah—their “Great Leader” (Quaid-e Azam), a title he was given before independence—Pakistanis made him their governor-general; his lieutenant in the party, Liaquat Ali Khan, was named prime minister. Pakistan’s first government, however, had a difficult task before it. Unlike Muhammad Iqbal’s earlier vision for Pakistan, the country had been formed from the two regions where Muslims were the majority—the northwestern portion he had espoused and the territories and the eastern region of Bengal province (which itself had also been divided between India and Pakistan). Pakistan’s two wings, therefore, were separated by some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of sovereign Indian territory with no simple routes of communication between them. Further complicating the work of the new Pakistani government was the realization that the wealth and resources of British India had been granted to India. Pakistan had little but raw enthusiasm to sustain it, especially during those months immediately following partition. In fact, Pakistan’s survival seemed to hang in the balance. Of all the well-organized provinces of British India, only the comparatively backward areas of Sind, Balochistan, and the North-West Frontier Province came to Pakistan intact. The otherwise more developed provinces of Punjab and Bengal were divided, and, in the case of Bengal, Pakistan received little more than the densely populated rural hinterland.

Adding to the dilemma of the new and untested Pakistan government was the crisis in Kashmir, which provoked a war between the two neighbouring states in the period immediately following their independence. Both Pakistan and India intended to make Kashmir a component of their respective unions, and the former princely state quickly became disputed territory—with India and Pakistan controlling portions of it—and a flash point for future conflicts. Economically, the situation in Pakistan was desperate; materials from the Indian factories were cut off from Pakistan, disrupting the new country’s meagre industry, commerce, and agriculture. Moreover, the character of the partition and its aftermath had caused the flight of millions of refugees on both sides of the divide, accompanied by terrible massacres. The exodus of such a vast number of desperate people in each direction required an urgent response, which neither country was prepared to manage, least of all Pakistan.

As a consequence of the unresolved war in Kashmir and the communal bloodletting in the streets of both countries, India and Pakistan each came to see the other as its mortal enemy. The Pakistanis had anticipated a division of India’s material, financial, and military assets. In fact, there would be none. New Delhi displayed no intention of dividing the assets of British India with its major adversary, thereby establishing a balance between the two countries. Moreover, India’s superior geopolitical position and, most importantly, its control of the vital rivers that flowed into Pakistan meant that the Muslim country’s water supplies were at the mercy of its larger, hostile neighbour. Pakistan’s condition was so precarious following independence that many observers believed the country could hardly survive six months and that India’s goal of a unified subcontinent remained a distinct possibility.

The early republic
Mohammed Ali Jinnah died in September 1948, only 13 months after Pakistan’s independence. Nevertheless, it was Jinnah’s dynamic personality that sustained the country during those difficult months. Assuming responsibility as the nation’s chief and virtually only decision maker, Jinnah held more than the ceremonial position of his British counterpart in India. But there too lay a special problem. Jinnah’s formidable presence, even though weakened by illness, loomed large over the polity, and the other members of government were totally subordinate to his wishes. Thus, although Pakistan commenced its independent existence as a democratic entity with a parliamentary system, the representative aspects of the political system were muted by the role of the Quaid-e Azam. In effect, Jinnah—not India’s Mountbatten—perpetuated the viceregal tradition that had been central to Britain’s colonial rule. Unlike India, where Gandhi opted to remain outside government and where India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the parliament administered to the country, in Pakistan the parliament and members of the governing cabinet were cast in a subordinate role.

Liaquat Ali Khan
When Jinnah died, a power vacuum was created that his successors in the Muslim League had great difficulty filling. Khwaja Nazimuddin, the chief minister of East Bengal, was called on to take up the office of governor-general. Known for his mild manner, it was assumed Nazimuddin would not interfere with the parliamentary process and would permit the prime minister to govern the country. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, however, lacked the necessary constituency in the regions that formed Pakistan. Nor did he possess Jinnah’s strength of personality. Liaquat therefore was hard put to cope with entrenched and vested interests, particularly in regions where local leaders dominated. Jinnah had worked hard to mollify competing and ambitious provincial leaders, and Liaquat, himself a refugee (muhajir) from India, simply did not have the stature to pick up where Jinnah had left off.

Liaquat was eager to give the country a new constitution, but such an undertaking was delayed by controversy, particularly over the distribution of provincial powers and over representation. Although what had been East Bengal (and became East Pakistan) contained the majority of Pakistan’s population, the Punjab nevertheless judged itself the more significant of the Pakistani provinces. The Punjabis had argued that East Bengal was populated by a significant number of Hindus whose loyalty to the Muslim country was questionable. Any attempt therefore to provide East Bengal with representation commensurate to its population would be challenged by the Punjab. Although Jinnah had voiced the view that Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and all religious denominations were equal citizens in the new Pakistani state, Liaquat could not neutralize this controversy, nor could he resolve the issue of provincial representation. Forced to sell his vision to the people of Pakistan directly, Liaquat engaged in a number of public speaking engagements, and it was at such a meeting, in Rawalpindi in October 1951, that he was killed by an assassin’s bullet.

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.

Military government
In light of such dissent and with secession being voiced in different regions of the country (notably in East Pakistan and the North-West Frontier Province), on Oct. 7, 1958, Mirza proclaimed the 1956 constitution abrogated, closed the national and provincial assemblies, and banned all political party activity. He declared that the country was under martial law and that Gen. Mohammad Ayub Khan had been made chief martial-law administrator. Mirza claimed that it was his intention to lift martial law as soon as possible and that a new constitution would be drafted; and on October 27 he swore in a new cabinet, naming Ayub Khan prime minister, while three lieutenant generals were given ministerial posts. The eight civilian members in the cabinet included businessmen and lawyers, one being a young newcomer, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a powerful landlord from Sind province. However, Ayub Khan viewed his being named prime minister as the president’s attempt to end his military career and ultimately to force him into oblivion. Clearly, the country could not afford two paramount rulers at the same time. Therefore, if one had to go, Ayub Khan decided that it should be Mirza. On the evening of October 27, Ayub Khan’s senior generals presented Mirza with an ultimatum of facing permanent exile or prosecution by a military tribunal. Mirza immediately left for London, never again to return to Pakistan. Soon thereafter, Ayub Khan, who now assumed the rank of field marshal, proclaimed his assumption of the presidency.

Martial law lasted 44 months. During that time, a number of army officers took over vital civil service posts. Many politicians were excluded from public life under an Electoral Bodies (Disqualification) Order; a similar purge took place among civil servants. Yet, Ayub Khan argued that Pakistan was not yet ready for a full-blown experiment in parliamentary democracy and that the country required a period of tutelage and honest government before a new constitutional system could be established. He therefore initiated a plan for “basic democracies,” consisting of rural and urban councils directly elected by the people that would be concerned with local governance and would assist in programs of grassroots development. Elections took place in January 1960, and the Basic Democrats, as they became known, were at once asked to endorse and thus legitimate Ayub Khan’s presidency. Of the 80,000 Basic Democrats, 75,283 affirmed their support. Basic democracies was a tiered system inextricably linked to the bureaucracy, and the Basic Democrats occupied the lowest rung of a ladder that was connected to the country’s administrative subdistricts (tehsils, or tahsils), districts, and divisions.

It was soon clear that the real power in the system resided in the bureaucrats who had dominated decision making since colonial times. Nevertheless, the basic democracies system was linked to a public-works program that was sponsored by the United States. The combined effort was meant to confer responsibility for village and municipal development to the local population. Self-reliance was the watchword of the overall program, and Ayub Khan and his advisers, as well as important donor countries, believed the arrangement would provide material benefits and possibly even expose people to self-governing experiences.

Ayub Khan also established a constitutional commission to advise on a form of government more appropriate to the country’s political culture, and his regime introduced a number of reforms. Not the least of these was the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance of 1961, which restricted polygamy and provided more rights and protection for women. He also authorized the development of family-planning programs that were aimed at tackling the dilemma of Pakistan’s growing population. Such actions angered the more conservative and religiously disposed members of society, who also swelled the ranks of the opposition. Under pressure to make amends and to placate the guardians of Islamic tradition, the family-planning program was eventually scrapped.

An important feature of the Ayub Khan regime was the quickening pace of economic growth. During the initial phase of independence, the annual growth rate was less than 3 percent, and that was scarcely ahead of the rate of population growth. Just prior to the military coup, the rate of growth was even smaller. During the Ayub Khan era—with assistance from external sources, notably the United States—the country accelerated economic growth, and by 1965 it had advanced to more than 6 percent per annum. Development was particularly vigorous in the manufacturing sector, but considerable attention was also given to agriculture. U.S. assistance was especially prominent in combating water logging and salinity problems that resulted from irrigation in the more vital growing zones. Moreover, plans were implemented that launched the “green revolution” in Pakistan, and new hybrid wheat and rice varieties were introduced with the goal of increasing yields.

Despite positive economic developments, overall, most investment was directed toward West Pakistan, and the divisions between East and West grew during this period. Ayub Khan attempted to answer Bengali fears of becoming second-class citizens when—after work was begun, at his order, on building a new Pakistan capital at Islamabad—he declared it was his intention to build a second, or legislative, capital near Dhaka, in East Pakistan. However, the start of construction on the new second capital did not placate the Bengalis, who were angered by Ayub Khan’s abrogation of the 1956 constitution, his failure to hold national elections, and the decision to sustain martial law.

East Pakistanis had many grievances, and in no instance did they genuinely believe their purposes and concerns could be served under Ayub Khan’s military government. Subsequent developments only served to enforce these beliefs. Water rights agreements signed with India and hydroelectric projects along the Indus River benefited the West, as did military agreements reached with the United States. The Pakistani officer class was largely from West Pakistan, and all the key army and air installations were located there—even in the case of naval capability, Karachi was a far more formidable base of operations than Chittagong in East Pakistan.

In 1962 Ayub Khan promulgated another constitution. Presidential rather than parliamentary in focus, it was based on an indirectly elected president and a reinforced centralized political system that emphasized the country’s viceregal tradition. Although Ayub anticipated launching the new political system without political parties, once the National Assembly was convened and martial law was lifted, it was apparent that political parties would be reactivated. Ayub therefore formed his own party, the Convention Muslim League, but the country’s political life and its troubles were little different from the days before martial law.

Ayub Khan won another formal term as president of Pakistan in January 1965, albeit in an election in which only the Basic Democrats cast ballots. Opposed by Fatima Jinnah, the sister of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who ran on a Combined Opposition Parties ticket, the contest was closer than expected. During the election campaign, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto—who as foreign minister was supposedly a loyal member of the Ayub Khan cabinet—promised in a public address that the conflict over Kashmir would be resolved during Ayub Khan’s presidency. Bhutto indicated that Kashmir would be released from Indian occupation by negotiation or, if that failed, by armed force, but there was little indication that Ayub Khan had sanctioned Bhutto’s pronouncement. Nevertheless, the foreign minister’s speech appeared to be both solace to the pro-Kashmiri interests in West Pakistan and a green light to the Pakistan army to begin making plans for a campaign in the disputed region.

A new war over Kashmir was not long in coming. Skirmishes between Indian and Pakistani forces on the line of control between the two administrated portions of the region increased in the summer of 1965, and by September major hostilities had erupted between the two neighbours. Indian strategy confounded Pakistani plans, as New Delhi ordered its forces to strike all along the border between India and West Pakistan and to launch air raids against East Pakistan and even threaten to invade the East. Pakistan’s military stores soon were exhausted, a situation made worse by an American-imposed arms embargo on both states that affected Pakistan much more than India. Ayub Khan had to consider halting the hostilities.

Ultimately, Ayub Khan was forced to accept a United Nations-sponsored cease-fire and to give up Pakistan’s quest for resolving the Kashmir problem by force of arms. Embarrassed and humiliated, Ayub Khan saw all his efforts at building a new Pakistan dashed in one failed venture, and he was compelled to attend a peace conference with the Indian prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, in Tashkent, in Soviet Uzbekistan. There the two leaders were unable to reach a satisfactory agreement of their own making, and their hosts compelled them to sign a draft prepared for them. At that juncture, Bhutto, who had accompanied Ayub Khan to the conference, indicated a desire to separate himself from his mentor. Ayub Khan’s popularity had reached its lowest level, and, in the Pakistani game of zero-sum politics, Bhutto anticipated gaining what the president had lost. Pressed by Ayub Khan, Bhutto held up his resignation, but soon thereafter he broke with the president, joined his voice to the opposition, and in due course organized his own political party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Ayub Khan was never the same after signing the Tashkent Agreement. Confronted by rising opposition that was now led by Bhutto in West Pakistan and Mujibur Rahman in East Pakistan, Ayub Khan struck back by arresting both men. Acknowledging that he could not manage the country without a modicum of cooperation from the politicians, Ayub Khan summoned a conference of opposition leaders and withdrew the state of emergency under which Pakistan had been governed since 1965. These concessions, however, failed to conciliate the opposition, and in February 1969 Ayub announced that he would not contest the presidential election scheduled for 1970. In the meantime, protests mounted in the streets, and strikes paralyzed the economy. Sparked by grievances that could not be contained, especially in East Pakistan, the disorder spread to the western province, and all attempts to restore tranquility proved futile. One theme sustained the demonstrators: Ayub Khan had remained in power too long, and it was time for him to go.

In March 1969, Ayub Khan announced his retirement and named Gen. Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan to succeed him as president. Once again the country was placed under martial law. Yahya Khan, like Ayub Khan before him, assumed the role of chief martial-law administrator. In accepting the responsibility for leading the country, Yahya Khan said he would govern Pakistan only until the national election in 1970. Yahya Khan abolished Ayub Khan’s basic democracies system and abrogated the 1962 constitution. He also issued a Legal Framework Order (LFO) that broke up the single unit of West Pakistan and reconstituted the original four provinces of Pakistan—i.e., Punjab, Sind, North-West Frontier Province, and Balochistan. The 1970 election therefore was not only meant to restore parliamentary government to the country, it was also intended to reestablish the provincial political systems. The major dilemma in the LFO, however, was that in breaking up the one-unit system, the distribution of seats in the National Assembly would be apportioned among the provinces on the basis of population. This meant that East Pakistan, with its larger population, would be allotted more seats than all the provinces of West Pakistan combined.



 

From disunion through the Zia al-Huq era

Civil war
Pakistan’s first national election therefore proved to be no panacea. When the ballots were counted, Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League won almost every seat in the National Assembly that had been allotted to East Pakistan under the LFO. Mujib now was the paramount leader in East Bengal, and, because his party had won a majority of the 300 contested seats in the National Assembly, Yahya Khan should have asked Mujib to form the national government. However, Bhutto—whose PPP had garnered half as many seats as the Awami League, virtually all of them from Sind and the Punjab—used his political leverage with high-ranking army officers to block such an action. Arguing that Mujib did not have a single seat in the western provinces and that he, Bhutto, was the only serious representative from the west wing, Bhutto insisted on using another formula to organize the civilian government.

Yahya Khan was called to mediate between Mujib and Bhutto, and in the meantime their respective parties addressed the dilemma and sought still another avenue that might produce a compromise solution. In fact, the key leaders in the PPP and Awami League did come to an understanding that would have met the particular interests of the different parties and their followers. Bhutto, however, rejected all compromise arrangements—even those negotiated by his own party—that would have allowed Mujib to become prime minister of Pakistan. Frustrated by his inability to reconcile the parties, on March 1, 1971, Yahya Khan announced that the new National Assembly would not be convened and that another way would have to be found to break the impasse.

Mujib declared that the people of Bengal had once again been betrayed by the power in West Pakistan. Provoked by the more radical elements in the Awami League and swept along by street demonstrations, strikes, and violent protests, he called for a boycott and general strike throughout East Pakistan. Mayhem ensued, as Bengalis attacked members of the non-Bengali community, particularly the Biharis (refugees from India and their descendants), resulting in considerable loss of life. In mid-March Yahya Khan and Bhutto again flew to Dhaka, supposedly to reopen negotiations. In fact, Yahya Khan went to East Pakistan to check on the army garrison there and to prepare it for the campaign that he believed would neutralize a budding rebellion and save the unity of Pakistan.

The army struck against the Awami League and its supporters on the night of March 25, 1971. Mujib was arrested and flown secretly to a prison in West Pakistan. Other major members of the party were likewise apprehended or went into hiding. Dhaka University was fired upon, and a large number of Bengali students and intellectuals were taken into custody; scores were transported to a remote location outside the city and summarily executed. Bengali armed resistance, which came to be called the Mukhti Bhini (“Freedom Force”), took form from disaffected Bengalis in the Pakistan army and others who were prepared to fight what they now judged to be an alien army. The independent state of Bangladesh was proclaimed, and a government in exile took root in India just across the East Pakistani border.

The escalation of violence provoked a mass movement of people, the majority of whom sought refuge in India. Although this heavy influx of refugees included a good portion of the Hindus who had remained in East Bengal after partition, many were Muslims. In fact, although the Pakistan army argued that Hindus from both portions of Bengal were responsible for the intensity of the struggle, there was no mistaking the great number of Muslim Bengalis who were being assaulted. The Pakistan army was unable to quell the fighting, and Indian forces began to supply the Mukhti Bhini. In December 1971 the Indian army invaded East Pakistan and in a few days forced the surrender of the 93,000-man West Pakistani garrison there.

Unable to supply its forces in the East, Pakistan opted not to expand the war in the West. The United States stood with Pakistan in the debate in the United Nations Security Council. Nevertheless, the U.S. government made no serious attempt to intervene and noted that its alliances with Pakistan did not commit Americans to take sides in a civil war, even one internationalized by the Indian invasion of East Pakistan. It was clear that India had effectively and irreversibly dismembered Pakistan and that the Muslim country would now take a different form from the one created by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Forced to yield his authority by the junta that had earlier sustained him, Yahya Khan resigned the presidency on Dec. 20, 1971; unlike his predecessor, Ayub Khan, he was in no position to pass the office to still another general. The Pakistan army had suffered a severe blow, and for the time the military was content to retire from politics and rebuild its forces and reputation. Bhutto, the leading politician in what remained of Pakistan, assumed the presidency and was called to assemble a new government. Under pressure to restore equilibrium, Bhutto pledged a new Pakistan, a new constitution, and a new public order, and he articulated a vision for Pakistan that rallied diverse elements and seemed to promise a new life for the country. But the joining together of hands did not last long. Bhutto’s manner, posture, and performance were more of the aristocrat than of the “Leader of the People” (Quaid-e Awam), a title he assumed for himself. In 1973 a new constitution, crafted by Bhutto and his colleagues, was adopted that restored parliamentary government. Bhutto stepped down from the presidency, which he deemed ceremonial in the new constitutional system, and assumed the more dynamic premiership.

As prime minister, Bhutto demanded nothing less than absolute power, and, increasingly suspicious of those around him, he formed the Federal Security Force (FSF), the principal task of which was his personal protection. In time, the FSF emerged as a paramilitary organization, and Bhutto’s demand for ever-increasing personal security raised questions about his governing style. It also opened rifts in the PPP, and it was not long before the suspicious Bhutto ordered the silencing and imprisonment of his closest associates. The younger generation, which had idolized Bhutto during his rise to power, also became the target of police and FSF crackdowns, which often paralyzed operations at the universities. Though Bhutto had presided over the promulgation of the 1973 constitution, too much had transpired—and much more unpleasantness lay ahead—to conclude that the new political order could save Pakistan from repeating past mistakes.

Bhutto scheduled the country’s second national election in 1977. With the PPP being the only successful national party in the country, nine opposition parties formed the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) and agreed to run as a single bloc. Fearing the possible strength of the PNA, Bhutto and his colleagues plotted an electoral strategy that included unleashing the FSF to terrorize the opposition. However, PNA members refused to be intimidated and centred their attacks on Bhutto and the PPP by running on a particularly religious platform. Arguing that Bhutto had betrayed Islamic practices, the PNA called for a cleansing of the body politic and a return to the basic tenets of Islamic performance.

The PNA, despite their efforts, was soundly defeated in the election, but the polling had not been without incident. Almost immediately complaints arose of electoral fraud, and voter discontent soon degenerated into violent street demonstrations. Bhutto and his party had won by a landslide, but it turned out to be an empty victory. With riots erupting in all the major metropolitan areas, the army, increasingly disenchanted with Bhutto, again intervened in Pakistan’s politics. Ignoring the election results, the army arrested Bhutto and dissolved his government. The prime minister was placed under house arrest, and, on July 5, 1977, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, Bhutto’s personal choice to head the Pakistan army, took the reins of government. Zia declared his intention to hold a new round of elections that would be fairer and more transparent. However, it soon became apparent that the army had no intention of allowing Bhutto to return to power. Bhutto’s subsequent arrest on charges that he ordered the assassination of a political rival, and Zia’s insistence that he be tried for this alleged crime, brought an end to the Bhutto era and ushered in the Zia ul-Haq regime.

Zia ul-Haq
Zia ul-Haq’s initial declaration that he would return government to civilian hands was at variance with his behaviour. His subsequent change in direction hinted that there were powers behind the scene that were determined to eliminate Bhutto as an active player. Zia in fact called for a complete change in direction once the decision was made not to conduct new elections, to arrest and try Bhutto, and, ultimately, to ignore the pleadings from the governments of other countries to spare Bhutto’s life. Found guilty and sentenced to death, Bhutto was hanged on April 4, 1979.

After Bhutto’s death, Zia ul-Haq, president since 1978, settled to the task of redesigning a political system for Pakistan. A devout Muslim, Zia believed that religious tradition should guide Pakistan’s institutions in all aspects of daily life. Moreover, the Soviet Union’s invasion of Muslim Afghanistan in December 1979 reinforced Zia’s belief that only by drawing from Islamic practices could the Muslims inhabiting both Pakistan and Afghanistan find common ground in their struggle to withstand the assault from an alien and aggressive neighbour. Islamization therefore became the guiding principle in Zia’s plan to reform Pakistan, to reassure its unity, and to galvanize the country to meet all threats, both foreign and domestic. Clearly, the program of Islamization was also geared to reinforce the rule of Zia ul-Haq as well as establish his legitimacy.

Pakistan’s status as a “frontline state” after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan demanded a military presence, and Zia ul-Haq played a major role in assisting the Afghan resistance (the mujahideen). The country also opened its doors to an influx of several million Afghan refugees, the majority of whom were housed in camps not far from the border. The main Afghan resistance leaders also established their headquarters in and around the northern city of Peshawar. However, Pakistan had limited resources with which to assist the refugees or the Afghan mujahideen, and assistance was sought from other Muslim states, especially Saudi Arabia. After Ronald Reagan became president of the United States in 1981, Washington also answered the call for help. Pakistan soon became the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, which by the end of Reagan’s second term had reached several billion dollars. Not insignificantly, Reagan also waived all trade restrictions on aid to Pakistan, even though Islamabad was known to be pursuing an aggressive program to develop nuclear weapons. Thus, despite strains in their relationship, Washington and Islamabad found common ground in the Soviet-Afghan conflict. Moreover, U.S. intelligence services did not discourage their Pakistani counterparts—most notably those in the Inter-Service Intelligence directorate—from working in close harmony with the most radical religious movements in Afghanistan.

The 1979 revolution in Iran, which ended the Pahlavi monarchy there, dovetailed with developments in Pakistan. Sensing an Islamic renaissance that would sweep the majority of Islamic nations, Zia ul-Haq had no hesitation in promoting a political system guided by religious principles and traditions. Zia called for criminal punishments in keeping with Islamic law. He also insisted upon banking practices and economic activity that followed Islamic experience. Zia put his Islamization program to a referendum of the people in 1984 and coupled it to a vote of confidence in his presidency, a favourable outcome of which would provide him with an additional five years in office. Zia indeed won overwhelming approval, though only half of the eligible voters participated, and the opposition insisted that the vote was rigged. Zia nevertheless had received his vote of confidence, and his Islamization program continued as the central policy of his administration.

In February 1985 Zia ul-Haq allowed national and provincial assembly elections, though without the participation of political parties. Zia’s opponents accused him of dictatorial tactics and asserted that the general-cum-president was only interested in neutralizing his opposition. Zia’s Islamic system, they argued, was little more than a ploy aimed at acquiring still wider powers. Although the opposition called on voters to boycott the elections, it was largely ignored, and the people turned out in considerable numbers to elect new legislatures and thereby end still another extended period of martial law. Zia ul-Haq used the occasion of the convening of the national assembly to handpick Muhammad Khan Junejo, a Sindhi politician and landowner, to become the country’s new prime minister.

Martial law was officially lifted in December 1985, and political parties sought to take advantage of the new conditions by reestablishing themselves. In January 1986, Junejo announced that he intended to revive and lead the Pakistan Muslim League—often designated as Muslim League (J) to distinguish it from other factions attempting to access the party’s legacy. Soon afterward Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and head of the PPP, returned from a two-year exile abroad and was greeted by a tumultuous gathering of supporters who were eager to reclaim their party’s reputation. Other political parties also reemerged during this period, but it was clear that in the contest for national political power the key rivals would be the Muslim League (J) and Bhutto’s PPP.

Lifting martial law coincided with intensified conflict between the country’s different ethnic communities, particularly in the commercial port city of Karachi. Tension between native Sindhis and Muslim immigrants from India (muhajirs) was an ever-present dilemma, and the formation of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the mid-1980s was both a cause and a consequence of the violence that was directed against the immigrant community. The founding of the MQM and its increasingly militant posture aroused the native Sindhis as never before. The Sindhi complaint that the muhajirs enjoyed a monopoly of political and economic power in Karachi did not go unnoticed. Indeed, the violent clashes between Sindhis and muhajirs were an inevitable outcome of the failure to promote civil society, let alone to encourage deeper integration among Pakistan’s ethnic groups. Moreover, violence could not be avoided when Pashtun migrants, notably Afghan Pashtuns, began moving from the frontier region to Karachi, posing still another challenge to the Sindhi as well as muhajir communities.

Still another problem involved the narcotics and weapons trade that had its roots in the North-West Frontier Province. By 1986 intercommunal violence in Karachi had reached a level not seen since partition, nor was the fighting contained to Karachi. Riots also broke out in Quetta and Hyderabad, and the government called on the army to restore law and order.

Confronting major opposition to his rule, challenged by intensified ethnic warfare, and struggling to sustain an economy confounded by mixed signals, in May 1988 Zia ul-Haq dissolved the national and provincial assemblies and dismissed the Junejo government. The president alleged that Junejo’s administration reeked of corruption, that the prime minister was too weak to control profligate politicians, and that he had encouraged the political opposition to weaken Zia by undermining his administration. Zia promised the country still another national election, which would, he said, restore clean government, and in June he made himself head of a new caretaker government. Although the country was in considerable disarray, Zia pretended that everything was under control. On Aug. 17, 1988, he was killed when his aircraft blew up in flight from Bahawalpur; the cause of the crash, which also took the life of the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and several top-ranking Pakistani generals, has never been fully determined.


 

Political and social fragmentation

The first administration of Benazir Bhutto
Following Zia’s death and under the prevailing law of succession, the chairman of the Senate, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a longtime civil servant, became acting president. His first official act was to declare that the elections scheduled for November 1988 would be held as planned. The election results revealed that Benazir Bhutto’s PPP had won somewhat less than half the seats in the legislature. One-fourth went to the Islamic Democratic Alliance (which claimed to represent the policies of the late general), and the remaining seats were won by independents and candidates from a number of lesser parties. Bhutto’s party did well in Sind and the North-West Frontier Province, where it was able to form the provincial governments. However, the Punjab was won by the Islamic Democratic Alliance (Islami Jamhoori Itihad [IJI]), led by Nawaz Sharif, a Punjabi businessman, who became the province’s chief minister.

Bhutto and her PPP had failed to win a mandate from the voters; however, the party had more seats in the national assembly than its nearest rival, and Ishaq Khan chose Bhutto to organize Pakistan’s first civilian administration since the dissolution of her father’s government in 1977. Thus, Ishaq Khan was formally elected president in December, and Benazir Bhutto became Pakistan’s first female prime minister. Moreover, she was the first woman to head a Muslim state.

The new prime minister was in one respect fortunate. Soon after she came to power, the Soviet Union withdrew the last of its forces from Afghanistan. On the other hand, an Afghan communist regime was still in power, and more than three million Afghan refugees remained in Pakistan. In an effort to sustain good relations with the army, which remained deeply committed to a presence in Afghanistan, Bhutto allowed the Pakistani military (now under the command of Gen. Mirza Aslam Baig) to sustain its proxy fight against the communist regime in Kabul. She also was compelled to use the military in a law-and-order campaign in Karachi, where ethnic unrest had continued unabated. Denied success in either operation, Bhutto began to challenge army strategy on the one side and simultaneously lost favour with the attentive Pakistani public on the other. Moreover, with developments in Sind unresolved, Bhutto aggravated the base of her supporters there.

Instead of acknowledging the need to form a coalition government with the IJI, Bhutto tried to force Nawaz Sharif to yield his position as chief minister of the Punjab. Sharif fought back, and Bhutto was confronted with more foes than she could manage. Unable to pass essential legislation, the Bhutto government faced charges of ineptitude and corruption, and demands for her removal were heard throughout the country. In August 1990 President Ishaq Khan could no longer ignore the situation and ruled that the PPP administration had lost the trust of the people. The Bhutto administration was dismissed, and another round of elections was scheduled for October. The PPP lost the contest, with Bhutto arguing that the elections had been rigged against her.

Bhutto was succeeded as prime minister by her Punjabi nemesis, Nawaz Sharif, but it was Ishaq Khan who had wielded extraordinary powers under the amended 1973 constitution (originally pressed by Zia ul-Haq to legitimize his authority). Thus, the viceregal tradition remained the dynamic force in Pakistani politics. Moreover, Bhutto’s earlier dismissal of Lieut. Gen. Hamid Gul—the powerful head of Inter-Service Intelligence and a close associate of President Ishaq Khan—suggested that there was much behind-the-scenes maneuvering that forced the president to act. Therefore, although the election had denied Bhutto’s return to the prime minister’s office, it was the prevailing view that the upper echelon of the Pakistani army had had enough of Bhutto.

The first administration of Nawaz Sharif
Nawaz Sharif rode to power on a wave of anti-PPP sentiment that included that of many disenchanted PPP members. The IJI, whose central core was the revived Punjab Muslim League, now reached out to the parties dominating the politics of the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan. Moreover, Sharif adopted Zia ul-Haq’s Islamization program as his own, bolstered alliances with the religious parties, and succeeded in getting the National Assembly to approve the Shariat Bill, with its special references to the Qurʾān and Sharīʿah as the law of the land. Like Zia before him, Sharif was able to enlist the support of the Muslim orthodoxy and made its allegiance a central tenet of his rule. But while Sharif was prepared to honour the more devout members of the religious community, he could not ignore his dependency on Pakistanis in the commercial and banking world. In the end, the prime minister could not meet the expectations of his different constituencies, and his coalition crumbled. Sustained civil disobedience, acts of lawlessness, and failed economic policies produced dissatisfaction.

Despite the collapse of the communist regime in Kabul in 1992, conditions in Afghanistan remained unstable, and the Pakistani military sought to restore order by supporting an ultraconservative religious regime—soon known as the Taliban—that came to dominate most of strife-torn Afghanistan. Relations between the prime minister, president, and army remained problematic. Nawaz Sharif had replaced army chief of staff Baig with Gen. Asif Nawaz in 1991; but when Asif Nawaz died suddenly and somewhat mysteriously two years later, Ishaq Khan took it upon himself to appoint Lieut. Gen. Abdul Waheed Kakar his successor, without consulting the prime minister. A struggle ensued between Nawaz Sharif and Ishaq Khan, with Sharif arguing the need to eliminate the viceregal powers of the president.

In April 1993, before Sharif could act, Ishaq Khan struck back. Using his constitutional powers, the president dismissed the Sharif government and again dissolved the national assembly. Sharif appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming the president had acted arbitrarily and contrary to constitutional principle. The court unexpectedly agreed with Sharif’s petition and ruled that the prime minister should be reinstated. Challenged by the unprecedented court action and acknowledging that both Sharif and Ishaq Khan had lost their credibility, the army again intervened and convinced both men that it would be in the country’s interest for them to resign their respective offices in July. With both the presidency and the prime minister’s office vacant, it was the army that ensured a smooth transition to still another caretaker government. Senate chairman Wasim Sajjad assumed the office of president, and Moeen Qureshi, a former World Bank official living in New York City, agreed to act as interim prime minister.

The interim government
The Moeen Qureshi administration proved to be a unique experience in the history of Pakistan. With full support from the country’s armed forces, the interim prime minister moved quickly to implement reforms that included devaluing the Pakistan rupee (the national currency), exposing corrupt practices in and outside government, and demanding that monies owed the government be paid forthwith. Qureshi cracked down on the granting of public land to politicians, on the failure to pay utility bills, and on loan defaulters, who were estimated in the thousands. Insisting on austerity measures and demanding that the country learn to live within its means, his administration was a breath of fresh air in an environment known for profligacy and inefficiency. The prime minister struck a blow against the landed gentry by imposing a temporary levy on agriculture, and he made no secret of his intention to strike at the big absentee landlords and their carefully hidden sources of wealth.

Qureshi’s tactics brought new funds into the Pakistan treasury, but even then they were hardly enough to return the country to solvency. Nevertheless, he persisted, even moving against the drug lords and demanding police reform so that law enforcement could more effectively deal with a deepening national problem of narcotics addiction. However, Qureshi’s reforms also produced problems and a stable of critics. The devaluation of the rupee and the restrictions imposed on the country’s commercial life elevated the price of gasoline, natural gas, and electricity, as well as staple food commodities. Generally speaking, though, the criticism leveled against the interim prime minister’s policies emanated from the sidelined politicians who suddenly posed themselves as benefactors of the country’s poorer classes.

The second administration of Benazir Bhutto
National elections were held again in October 1993. In a close contest, the PPP won a plurality—though not a majority—of seats in the National Assembly; Nawaz Sharif’s new Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) was a somewhat distant second, though his party received a slightly higher percentage of the popular vote. Fewer than half of registered voters cast a ballot, and election results were close throughout the country. Overall, however, Balochistan was the only province where the PPP failed to outdistance the PML-N. In alliance with Junejo’s Pakistan Muslim League (J) (PML-J), the PPP formed the new civilian government, and, after three years in the opposition, Benazir Bhutto returned to the premiership.

The PML-J helped the PPP take control of the Punjab, an objective that Bhutto could not attain in her earlier administration. Nonetheless, Nawaz Sharif’s party was able to form coalition provincial governments in Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province. The power, however, was in Bhutto’s hands, and it was for her to determine the country’s course. Having spoken of democracy for so long, it was the prime minister’s task to realize what had escaped her grasp during her previous administration. Moreover, Bhutto had the good fortune of having one of her own party, Farooq Leghari, assume the office of the president. Yet, the country remained economically unstable, and Pakistanis were far from developing a genuine civil society. Bhutto, favoured by the Americans, had to juggle relations with them and the Pakistani people: Pakistan came under U.S. pressure to freeze Pakistan’s popular nuclear program and to reach a settlement over Kashmir. Furthermore, in 1993, the United States (at New Delhi’s urging) had placed Pakistan on a “watch list” as a state sponsor of terrorism. India cited Islamabad’s support of jihadi movements operating in Kashmir, but the Pakistani public, as well as Pakistan’s military establishment, had long encouraged and supported the development of a variety of resistance groups in what they had always termed “occupied Kashmir.” The U.S. pressure therefore was judged offensive and denounced by the Pakistanis.

Political crises both major and minor abounded, and Bhutto faced the added indignity of having a major family squabble spill over into the media when the prime minister’s brother Murtaza Bhutto accused her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, of corruption. The incident soon spun out of control, with Bhutto’s mother taking Murtaza’s side. The prime minister was able to do little to push her legislative agenda, and Nawaz Sharif released documents that cited Bhutto’s personal excesses; when the prime minister herself became embroiled in a banking scandal, it was almost impossible for her to mount a credible defense. President Leghari himself could not escape criticism, and it was alleged that he profited from a land deal that was linked to his PPP associations.

Bhutto, like Sharif earlier, had become bogged down responding to accusations of corruption and extortion, while the government foundered. Nationwide, chaos reigned. In Sind, another round of sectarian fighting erupted, and strife between Sunni and Shīʿite Muslims contributed to the mayhem. In the North-West Frontier Province tribal leaders had become the target of assassins, while others were implicated in trafficking weapons and drugs. The army earlier had pledged a hands-off policy in political matters, but domestic conditions had so deteriorated that that promise had to be reconsidered. Moreover, in October 1995 some 40 army officers were arrested for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government and kill the president and prime minister.

Given the intensifying woes, Bhutto no longer saw eye to eye with President Leghari, and when he ignored her advice in dealing with the army high command and with changes in the Supreme Court, their relationship reached the breaking point. Leghari, uncomfortable with the constant intrigue, was ready to take direct action against Bhutto and her husband. That moment came in September 1996, when Benazir’s brother Murtaza Bhutto was killed in a police shootout, and Asif Ali Zardari was accused of complicity in Murtaza’s death. In November, Leghari dismissed Bhutto’s government.

The second administration of Nawaz Sharif
The Meraj Khalid interim government was meant to keep the country on the rails, not to correct Pakistan’s multidimensional problems. Bureaucrats were purged for compromising their professionalism by colluding with the PPP, the national economy underwent scrutiny by expert economists, and a serious effort was made to restore law and order. In the meantime, the politicians clamoured for a return to more-formal civilian politics. Bhutto was the most vociferous, having accused Leghari of stabbing her in the back. Ignoring these assaults, the interim government began the process of establishing a Council for Defense and National Security (CDNS), comprising the president, the prime minister, the defense minister, the interior minister, and the chairman and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Although high-ranking military officers appeared favourably disposed to the formation of the CDNS, many politicians were wary and were reluctant to lend their support.

Bhutto’s appeal to the Supreme Court that her government had been unconstitutionally dissolved was denied, and the 1997 elections, which went forward on schedule, were judged fair in spite of claims of fraud by the PPP. Of the more than 200 seats contested in the National Assembly, the PPP won fewer than 20. Only in Sind did the PPP have anything resembling a respectable showing. The PML-N of Nawaz Sharif was the big winner, taking all the provinces either outright or through coalitions with provincial parties. Although only one-third of the eligible electorate had voted, no party in the history of Pakistan had done better in an election (taking two-thirds of the vote), and Sharif could claim a veritable mandate. With the armed forces standing by, and with the president still armed with extraordinary powers, Sharif assembled another government.

Mindful of the need to limit the power of the president, Nawaz Sharif gained parliamentary approval of the 13th amendment to the constitution, which withdrew the president’s authority to remove a government at his own discretion. A 14th amendment, which prevented party members from violating party discipline, was struck down by the Supreme Court, an action that set the stage for a confrontation between the prime minister and the high court. Sharif attempted to have the number of Supreme Court members reduced from 17 to 12. However, this attempt to tamper with the judiciary stirred up the Pakistani bar, which entered the fray and demanded that Sharif be disqualified as a member of the parliament. Although the prime minister relented, by December 1997 Sharif, with assistance from the parliament, had extended his powers to such a degree that even President Leghari was forced to resign. Sharif also accrued enough power to relieve the chief justice of the Supreme Court of his duties.

Nevertheless, Nawaz Sharif’s successful power plays were minimized by his failure to halt the sustained ethnic conflict in Karachi and Sind, the sectarian bloodshed that had broken out in the North-West Frontier Province, and the tribal struggle for greater autonomy in Balochistan. All of these conflicts had escalated throughout his time in office. Moreover, the government could arrest radicals and others accused of perpetuating the general disorder, but it could not bring an end to civil strife—and it certainly could not act without the services provided by the army. Sharif also had to confront an economy in shambles, and serious consideration was given to selling public assets (e.g., power stations, telecommunications, airlines, banks, and railroads) to meet obligations on the ever-growing foreign debt. Indeed, Sharif’s interest in a form of “supply side” economic reorganization and privatization was not the sought-after remedy.

Despite these failures, however, by 1998 Nawaz Sharif had amassed more power than any previous elected civilian government in Pakistan. The country was a long way from achieving real growth, however, and the continuing reluctance to allow for a loyal opposition made a mockery of the regime’s democratic goals. The PML-N leader used his influence to implement “Program 2010,” which centred attention on education reform, the launching of public service committees, and the opening of new employment opportunities. However, the prime minister’s economic program came to nothing when the countries that had been expected to provide the funding for the different ventures withdrew their offers after Pakistan detonated a series of nuclear devices in May 1998.

News of the nuclear tests sent distress signals throughout the world, and concerns only intensified with Pakistan’s growing instability and the likelihood that nuclear weapons, technology, or materials could be transferred, sold, or leaked to other countries or groups (indeed, in 2004 Abdal Qadir Khan, the head of Pakistan’s nuclear program, admitted to sharing weapons technology with several countries, including Iran, North Korea, and Libya). In the final analysis, Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons did little to address the social and political unrest in the country, and it was hardly a boon to the national economy or to Sharif’s political future.

Confronted with growing unrest, much of it directed against his rule, Sharif proclaimed a state of emergency, which enabled him to rule the country by ordinance and special decrees. He also made closer alliances with the orthodox Islamic groups (e.g., the Islamic Assembly) and seemed to placate the religious divines by adopting additional Islamic laws (e.g., its punishment for adultery). A proposed 15th amendment to the constitution, establishing Islamic law as the basis of all governance, was never fully ratified, but Pakistan’s Federal Shariat Court, instituted during the Zia years, was given greater latitude in meting out Islamic justice.

The prime minister’s autocratic behaviour only intensified local and provincial resistance. The PPP and a number of smaller parties formed the Pakistan Awami Itehad, but it was not clear how they expected to challenge the administration. Moreover, the government had muzzled the press and ignored virtually all constitutional constraints; and administration expenditures had gone unchecked, as profligate spending on the regime’s pet projects caused more severe economic dislocation. With ethnic strife continuing unabated, Pakistan’s army chief of staff, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, spoke for a frustrated public when he appeared to indicate the country was teetering at the abyss. However, Karamat’s role in the political process angered Nawaz Sharif, and in October 1998 the prime minister pressured the army high command into forcing the general’s early retirement. Karamat was quickly and quietly replaced by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a muhajir (post-partition immigrant) whom Sharif believed would be more compliant as well as apolitical.

Military leaders were now even more convinced that Sharif was attempting to politicize the army; but the army also had other concerns. In mid-1999 the conflict over the Kashmir region flared again, when fighting broke out with Indian forces in the high mountains of the Kargil region. The prime minister, sensing danger, made a hurried trip to Washington and appeared to yield to U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton’s suggestion that Pakistani forces pull back from the contested area. However, Pakistan’s generals opposed a retreat strategy, believing that the advantages favoured their forces. Most important, General Musharraf vehemently defended and stood with his fellow officers, and the impression circulated that the generals were planning to challenge Sharif’s powers. Sharif, only now realizing he had made the wrong choice to head the army, set in motion a plan to replace Musharraf with another general. Musharraf, however, had the support of his fellow officers and, unlike Karamat, had no intention of yielding his position.

On Oct. 12, 1999, Sharif attempted to oust Musharraf while the general was out of the country, but other generals thwarted the plot and arrested Sharif; on his return to Pakistan that same day, Musharraf announced the dissolution of the Sharif government and the suspension of the constitution. Although the action was clearly a coup d’état, Musharraf did not declare martial law, and he stated that fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution were to be preserved and that all laws other than the constitution would continue in force unless altered by military authority. Musharraf nevertheless did declare a Proclamation of Emergency, and on October 14 he announced that Pres. Mohammad Rafique Tarar would remain in office, while the national and state legislatures would be suspended. The country’s courts would continue operating with the limitation that the justices not interfere with any order coming from the chief executive—as Musharraf at first styled himself. Moreover, Provisional Constitution Order No. 1 of 1999 specified that the president could only act in accordance with and with the advice of the chief executive.

The Pervez Musharraf government
As chief executive, Musharraf arrogated virtual total power to himself. The general cited the substantial turmoil in the country and noted that institutions had been systematically destroyed, that the economy was in a state of near collapse, and that only the most drastic measures could even begin to improve the national condition. Musharraf said Pakistan was at a critical crossroads and that the Sharif government had even planned to split and weaken the armed forces. Noting that he could not save both the country and the constitution at the same time, Musharraf chose to sacrifice the latter for the former. Nonetheless, the constitution had not been abrogated—merely held in “abeyance” until better times again allowed for its reinstatement. Careful to point out that martial law had not been imposed, he nevertheless insisted the country could not afford to perpetuate the old politics.

A Chief Executive Secretariat was hurriedly assembled in the waning days of 1999, and by mid-2000 that temporary edifice had undergone restructuring in order to give more administrative powers to the new regime. Ranking military officers assumed the most important positions in the government, and all civilian members of the secretariat had to pass scrutiny by army officers. The massive induction of serving military officers in the secretariat also was aimed at providing Musharraf with the same command and discipline structure found in the Pakistan army. The major dilemma facing Pakistan’s new rulers, however, was their lack of experience in civil affairs. Moreover, on-the-job training in the day-to-day life of the country quickly caused strains within the services.

Nawaz Sharif was arrested, charged and tried for high crimes, and, after being found guilty, sentenced to a long prison term. However, under international pressure he subsequently was released and sent into exile (Saudi Arabia), with the understanding that he would remain out of the country for 10 years.

The actions of Pakistan’s generals was coldly received by many in the outside world. Washington was quick to criticize the coup leaders, and Clinton signaled his disfavour by altering his March 2000 South Asian itinerary so as to spend only a few hours in Pakistan while stopping in India and Bangladesh for longer visits. However, the strain in U.S.-Pakistan relations was caused by a wide array of issues: Pakistan’s sustained political instability, its repeated failure at constructing civil society, the impediments to a resolution of the Kashmir question, and—most significantly—what seemed to be the country’s nuclear arms race with India.

As was the case in previous military governments, Musharraf’s announced intent was to return Pakistan to civilian rule as soon as feasible. The chief executive’s plan to achieve this goal was similar in certain aspects to that put forward by Ayub Khan a generation earlier. Civilian rule had fragmented, and a return to full civilian control would first require the establishment of local democracy—hearkening back to Ayub Khan’s “basic democracies”—a system devoid of competitive political parties. However, like the generals before him, Musharraf chose in June 2001 to consolidate his power by forcing the retirement of President Rafique Tarar, dispensing with the title of chief executive, and making himself president. The general also effectively became head of government, since the position of prime minister had been vacant since Sharif’s ouster.

In July, as president, Musharraf traveled to Agra, India, where he met with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to discuss regional security and, importantly, the status of Kashmir. No real progress was made, but the meeting set the stage for subsequent summit meetings between Musharraf and his Indian counterparts. The president appeared to be slipping into a role that promised a period of reflection on how to reconstruct the country’s domestic and foreign policy, but that all was changed within two months by the new reality created by the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Following Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in (and loss of) East Pakistan and Zia ul-Huq’s subsequent emphasis on Islamization, the Pakistani army increasingly had been inclined to define its purpose in spiritual terms. Musharraf, long a key planner in Pakistan’s military hierarchy, was linked to these trends. Initially, this constituted recruiting Islamist militants for clandestine operations in the Kashmir region. With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan—particularly the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Afghan border—became a safe haven for such militants from all parts of the world. The Pakistani military’s Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate (ISI) became the main conduit of the country’s support of the Afghan mujahideen fighters based there in their conflict with the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Such assistance continued following the withdrawal of Moscow’s forces in the late 1980s, and the ISI was instrumental in raising the Taliban as a counterforce to the rival groups seeking control of the Afghan state at that time—the strategy being to give Pakistan a dominant role in Afghanistan as that country emerged from two decades of constant warfare.

Pakistan’s political landscape changed dramatically with the events of September 11. It was quickly determined that the attacks on the United States had been staged by the Muslim militant organization al-Qaeda, which was operating out of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border with the support of the Taliban regime. Pakistan had diplomatic relations with Afghanistan, but Musharraf hesitated to put pressure on the Taliban to arrest al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. However, as al-Qaeda and the Taliban became judged a single entity, the United States demanded Pakistani assistance as it prepared to move militarily against both organizations. Musharraf chose to side with the U.S.-led coalition against the Taliban.

Musharraf’s decision to join the American effort was met with outrage by Islamist conservatives in Pakistan. Thousands of pro-Taliban Pakistani volunteers crossed the border to help in the fight against U.S. troops and their coalition allies when those forces invaded and occupied Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. In the period following the September 11 attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the population of Islamist militants boomed in the FATA, as Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters found refuge over the border in Pakistan. Many more Muslim recruits flocked to the FATA from abroad, eager to join the conflict.

Musharraf was pressured by Washington to take aggressive action against these Islamist operatives in the tribal areas, and the Pakistani military launched a major campaign to combat militants, particularly in mountainous Waziristan. However, the tribal Pashtun region historically had been off-limits to the central government, and Pakistan’s military action not only challenged Pashtun tribal autonomy there, but it also affected members of the Pashtun community not involved with the militants. When government forces were met with stiff resistance, the soldiers—often paramilitary and recruited from similar tribal orders—refused to fight or fought with little enthusiasm. Musharraf dismissed a number of army officers deemed sympathetic to the Taliban, and numerous foreign jihadists (including al-Qaeda militants) were arrested by Pakistani authorities and turned over to coalition officials, but the United States continued to accuse Islamabad (and particularly Musharraf) of not doing enough to contain the terrorist threat.

In April 2002 Musharraf, seeking to formalize his position as the head of state, held and overwhelmingly won a referendum granting him an additional five years as president. The referendum also reinstated the constitution, though modified with provisions spelled out in a document called the Legal Framework Order (LFO). In addition to extending Musharraf’s term, the LFO expanded the president’s powers and increased the number of members of both houses of the legislature. Parliamentary elections followed in October under the limitations imposed by the LFO, and Musharraf’s adopted political party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) (PML-Q), took more of the seats in the National Assembly than any other contending party. The party subsequently forged a coalition government headed by PML-Q leader Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, a veteran politician and former Nawaz Sharif supporter. The opposition PPP polled next highest, but it was a coalition of religious parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) that made the most notable showing—marking the first time a Pakistani religious organization had gained a significant voice in parliament. The MMA was vehemently opposed to Musharraf’s policy of confronting Islamist groups, and, after gaining a dominant political role in the North-West Frontier Province, the MMA openly questioned the army’s actions in Waziristan.

Musharraf’s government had been combating religious extremism at home, banning some of the more militant groups that had long been active in Pakistan and rounding up hundreds of religious activists. However, Musharraf generally had not addressed Islamist violence in Kashmir. Low-level fighting and skirmishing took place along the line of control there until late November 2003, when, unexpectedly, the Pakistani government declared a unilateral cease-fire and sought negotiations with New Delhi. The following month, two attempts were made on the president’s life. Acts of political and religious violence continued to escalate, particularly those between Sunni and Shīʿite factions. Late in December the parliament ratified most provisions of the LFO as the 17th amendment to the constitution, confirming Musharraf’s power to dismiss a prime minister, dissolve the National Assembly, and appoint chiefs of the armed forces and provincial governors.

In January 2004 Musharraf sought and received an unprecedented vote of confidence from a parliamentary electoral college. In August Shaukat Aziz, a former banker and minister of finance, took the premiership. Musharraf, however, clearly continued to hold the reins of power, and despite repeated promises to return the country to full civilian authority, he announced at the end of the year that the country was too fragile for him to comply with his own deadlines. This applied also to the president’s refusal to step down as head of the armed forces, despite repeated demands by political opponents that he do so. On the other side of the political spectrum, Musharraf had to contend with constant attacks from the MMA, who accused him of seeking to secularize Pakistan. The country continued to be subject to increasing incidents of sectarian violence, including suicide bombings at mosques and other public places. Adding to this human-generated calamity, Pakistan suffered a devastating earthquake in October 2005 in the Kashmir region that killed tens of thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

In early 2007 Musharraf began seeking reelection to the presidency. However, because he remained head of the military, opposition parties and then the Pakistan Supreme Court objected on constitutional grounds. In March Musharraf dismissed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, which sparked a general strike of Pakistani lawyers and outbreaks of violent protest in various parts of the country; the Supreme Court overturned the dismissal in July, and Chaudhry was reinstated. In October an electoral college consisting of the parliament and four provincial legislatures voted to give Musharraf another five-year term, although opposition members refused to participate in the proceedings. After the Supreme Court delayed the pronouncement of this outcome (in order to review its constitutionality), Musharraf declared a state of emergency in early November. The constitution was once again suspended, members of the Supreme Court (including Chaudhry) were dismissed, and the activities of independent news media organizations were curtailed. Later in the month, the Supreme Court, reconstituted with Musharraf appointees, upheld his reelection; Musharraf subsequently resigned his military commission and was sworn into the presidency as a civilian.

In the fall of 2007 Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto—who had also been living in exile—were permitted to return to Pakistan, and each began campaigning for upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for early January 2008. At the end of December, however, Bhutto was assassinated at a political rally in Rawalpindi, an act that stunned Pakistanis and set off riots and rampages in different parts of the country. Musharraf, having only just lifted the state of emergency, had to again place the armed forces on special alert, and he was forced to postpone the election until mid-February.

Lawrence Ziring


 

The outcome of the voting was seen as a rejection of Musharraf and his rule; his PML-Q party finished a distant third behind the PPP (now led by Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s widower), which captured about one-third of the parliamentary seats up for election, and Sharif’s party, the PML-N, with about one-fourth of the seats. In March the PPP and PML-N formed a coalition government. Yousaf Raza Gilani, a prominent member of the PPP and a former National Assembly speaker, was elected prime minister.

Disagreements emerged within the governing coalition in the months following its formation, particularly regarding the reinstatement of the Supreme Court judges Musharraf had dismissed late the previous year, and these disputes threatened to destabilize the alliance. Nevertheless, in August 2008 the coalition moved to begin impeachment charges against Musharraf, citing grave constitutional violations; on August 18, faced with the impending proceedings, Musharraf resigned.

Pakistan under Zardari
Conflict within the coalition continued to escalate following Musharraf’s departure. In light of ongoing differences, including disputes over Musharraf’s successor, Sharif subsequently withdrew the PML-N from the governing coalition and indicated that his party would put forth its own candidate in the presidential elections announced for early September; however, neither the PML-N nor the PML-Q candidate won enough support to pose a challenge to Zardari, the PPP’s candidate, and on Sept. 6, 2008, he was elected president.

Friction between Zardari and Sharif intensified in early 2009 when the Supreme Court voted to disqualify Sharif’s brother from his position as chief minister of the Punjab and to uphold a ban prohibiting Sharif himself from holding political office (the ban stemmed from his 2000 conviction for high crimes). Sharif alleged that the court’s rulings were politically motivated and backed by Zardari. In addition, the status of the Supreme Court judges dismissed under Musharraf who had yet to be reinstated—one of the issues that had undermined the Sharif-Zardari coalition—remained a major source of conflict between the two rivals. In March 2009 Sharif broke free of an attempt to place him under house arrest and headed toward the capital, where he planned to hold a rally advocating for the reinstatement of the judges. Faced with this prospect, the government agreed to reinstate Chief Justice Chaudhry and a number of other Supreme Court judges who had not yet been returned to their posts. The move was seen as a political victory for Sharif and a significant concession on the part of Zardari, who is thought to have opposed Chaudhry’s return because of the possibility that the amnesty Zardari had received under Musharraf might be overturned. Shortly thereafter, Sharif’s brother was also returned to his position.

In October 2008 limited trade between the Pakistani- and Indian-administered portions of Kashmir resumed. It was the first such commerce in more than 60 years and signaled improved relations between the two countries.

Lawrence Ziring
Ed.