Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto 1971 - 77
Background
·
1971, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became
President and Chief Martial Law Administrator
·
Pakistan had faced a defeat in war
with India
·
East Pakistan got separated
·
As PPP was won majority in 1970
elections so Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto intended to use that majority to introduce
radical changes in Pakistan
Controlling the Army
Reasons for controlling
Army
·
Although he was not an Army man yet
he was Chief Martial Law Administrator and country was under military rule
·
He intended to limit the powers of
Army so that Army may not intervene in his policies
·
Unless this was achieved, Zulfiqar
would not have been successful in introducing his changes
Measures taken to control
Army
·
Removing the most important army
leaders: He removed 29 senior army leaders within 4 months in power. Among
these were head of Air Force and Commander in Chief of the army
·
Appointing his own leaders: General
Tikka Khan was placed in charge of the Army in a new post name Chief of Army
Staff
·
Setting up Federal Security Force: A
government controlled military force was set up to assist the Police Force
The Simla Agreement 1972
Reasons for Simla
Agreement
·
It was vital to restore diplomatic
relations with India after the war
·
Pakistan wanted to have its prisoners
back which were captured by India in East Pakistan
Salient Features of Simla
Agreement
·
Pakistani Prime Minister, Zulfiqar
and Indian Prime Minister, Indra Gandhi signed the agreement in July 1972
·
India agreed to return prisoners to
Pakistan upon a promise that Pakistan will discuss problem of Kashmir directly
with India and not on international forums like UN
·
Bhutto didn’t give up the claim for
Kashmir as it was rightly part of Pakistan
Results of Simla Agreement
·
Zulfiqar reduced his dependency on
army to make war with India less likely
·
Improved his government’s
international relations by being seen as willing to negotiate to maintain peace
·
Increased his popularity in Pakistan
by bringing home prisoners of war
Establishing an new Constitution
Background:
·
PPP won overwhelming majority in 1970
elections
·
1972, martial law was lifted and the
new Assembly was called
·
A committee was set up to draft a
constitution accepted to all stakeholders
·
The report of the committee was
almost unanimously supported by Assembly
·
On 14th August 1973 the
new constitution became law of the country
·
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto became Prime
Minister and Chaudhry Fazal Elahi was elected as President
Salient Features of 1972 Constitution:
·
There will be two houses, the Senate
and the National Assembly
·
Assembly will be elected for 5 years
and members of Senate would be nominated in equal numbers from each of the four
provinces
·
The leader of the party with majority
in the Assembly would become Prime Minister and select a Cabinet
·
The President became largely the
figure head, whose orders had to be signed by the Prime Minister
·
Pakistan was declared as Islamic
Republic of Pakistan and both President and Prime Minister had to be Muslim
·
Pakistan was a federal state.
·
Each province had its own assembly,
elected government
·
All fundamental human rights were
guaranteed
Party Politics after 1970 Elections
·
1973 Constitution revived the power
of National Assembly and as a result political parties became more important
·
PPP was a major party in National
Assembly and in Punjab and Sindh Provincial Assemblies
·
National Awami Party and Jamiat e
Ulema Islam were stronger in KP and Baluchistan working together as a coalition
·
This gave these parties enough
strength to force through changes that would maintain the autonomy of the
provincial assemblies
Agreement between PPP
& NAP/JUI
·
National Assembly would not appoint
Provincial Governors without the agreement of Provincial Assemblies
·
NAP and JUI will give support to PPP
in national assembly
·
NAP and JUI will have free hand in
their provinces
Reasons for agreement
coming to an end:
·
The agreement lasted for only 1 year
·
The agreement ended with Central
Government dismissed the Governors of KP and Baluchistan
·
There was an uprising by Balochis
which took five years to suppress
Consequences of the
agreement:
·
This uprising destroyed any idea of
provincial autonomy
·
It also brought Pakistan Army back in
politics
·
Good government meant that several
steps had to be taken which limited the benefits of new constitution
·
A constitutional amendment was made
that allowed government to limit press freedom and ban any political party it
felt was a threat to the country
·
Later, laws were passed increasing
the powers of security forces
·
Any person thought to be a threat to
government might find himself victim of FSF brutality
Bhutto’s Reforms
·
During election campaign Bhutto
promised to give “Food, Shelter and Clothing”
·
After winning overwhelming majority
Bhutto was expected to fulfill his promises
·
Therefore, country needed reforms
that would raise food production, created more jobs and provided a better
welfare system
·
All these reforms required money and
time to be properly implemented
Industrial Reforms
·
Bhutto wanted to promote economic
growth
·
It required to bring inflation down
which peaked to 25%
·
For the first time ever, policy of
nationalization was implemented in Pakistan
Policy of Nationalization
Reasons for Nationalization:
·
To control industrial output
·
To channelize investment into industrialization
·
To raise the working and living standards of workers
including provision of cheap housing
·
To allow workers to set up unions
·
To even out inequalities of wealth and income
distribution as 20 families were controlling 80% of Pakistan’s large scale
industry
·
To create wealth to help fund other government reforms
·
To raise the popularity of PPP within Urban area as it
was their major vote bank
Salient Features:
·
All major industries of the country like sugar,
cotton, vegetable oil, rice, banking, insurance etc sectors were taken under
government control
·
All 70 major industrial units were placed under the
control of a Federal Ministry of Production
Problems faced by nationalization policy;
·
Lack of skilled labor, as Pakistani education system
was not producing sufficiently educated and trained workers to take managerial
positions
·
Capable factory owners were replaced by Civil Servants
with little understanding of Commerce
·
Overload of work in Federal Ministry of Production, as
it had to do a huge job of coordinating nationalization process across the
country
·
The system got bogged down in bureaucratic muddle
·
Declining demand, as the changes were introduced at
the time when world economy was facing recession. This decline forced private
industries to close down whereas nationalized industries continued their
operation bearing loss
Evaluation of Nationalization:
·
These industrial reforms brought some positive changes
·
Inflation fell to 6%
·
Economic growth also began to increase
·
Unemployment was reduced
·
Worker’s conditions and poor people living standards
improved
Agricultural Reforms
Bhutto introduced two important changes to
bring agricultural reforms
Land Ownership:
Ceiling Brackets:
·
Under Ayub, the ceiling on land ownership had been
500 acres irrigated
land 1000
acres non-irrigated land
·
Under Bhutto, it was reduced to
250
acres irrigated 500
non-irrigated
Reasons for reduction:
·
The ceiling was reduced because improved technology
and better farming methods had raised production
·
Landowners could maintain their income on smaller,
more productive areas of land
·
Surplus land could be sold to the smaller peasant
farmers to make their profits
·
Land would also be available to allow many people to
own their farms for the first time
Drawback:
·
Bhutto’s reforms were undermined by the cunning of big
landowners
·
Many of the big landowners thought Bhutto’s reforms to
be much harsher
·
They transferred landholding to members of extended
family
·
Even others transferred land to trusted tenants and
leased it back on long term leases
·
Some bribed officials to persuade them to overlook
transgressions to the new law
Security of Tenure
·
Bhutto wanted to give tenants security of tenure of
the land they farmed
·
A measure was introduced giving tenants the first
right of purchase of land farmed by them
·
This meant that landowners could not sell land to a
third party who might then evict tenants
·
Such measures encouraged tenants to make improvements
on their lands as they knew they would not be evicted
Drawback:
·
Big landowners undermined the impact of reforms
·
In advance of this measure, there was massive eviction
of tenants from farms to prevent them receiving security of tenure
·
Bhutto’s government also underestimated the influence
of landowners in their community
·
If a landowner did not want to sell to the tenant it
was extremely difficult for the tenant to stand up to the landowner, to raise
finance to buy the land and find the funds to fight a legal case
·
Big landowners also bribed officials to record land as
owner-cultivated when actually it was in the hands of tenants
Educational Reforms
Reasons for Educational Reforms
·
The government was concerned about education
·
Official literacy rate was only 25%
·
Bhutto took education seriously and introduced reforms
Basic Goals of Educational Reforms:
·
To eradicate ignorance
·
To provide education for all including women
·
To ensure school curriculum meets Pakistan’s social,
economical and political needs
·
To ensure uniformity of education
·
To raise the self-confidence of common man
·
To raise aspirations for higher education among youth
·
To develop Pakistani culture and identity and national
pride
Problems:
·
There was lack of coordination between administration
and planning
·
There were lack of administrators
·
Very little only 13% of the government budget was
allocated for education
·
There was lack of awareness in rural areas about
education
·
There was a drop of standard of education in certain educational
institutions after nationalization
·
Educational reforms are time taking and results are
not produced over night
Health and
Social Reforms
Reasons for Health Reforms
·
Pakistan had poor health care facility
·
It had one of the highest infant mortality rate the
world
·
Life expectancy was also very low
·
Bhutto launched an extensive health reforms
Salient
Features
·
Prime feature of the reform was introduction of Rural
Health Centres [RHCs] in rural areas and Basic Health Units [BHUs] in urban
areas
·
Their main aim was to provide more widespread
healthcare.
·
The plan was to set up
1
RHC for every 60,000
people
1
BHU for every 20,000
people
·
Training colleges for doctors and nurses were expected
to admit students on merit
·
Once qualified, doctors had to work the first year
wherever the government placed them. So that instead of working, only in big
cities they could be assigned a post in any small town or village
·
The sale of medicines under brand names was also
banned.
·
This practice allows drug companies to sell new
medicines under a patented name and stops other companies manufacturing the
drug under its medical name. This measure reduced the costs of medicines
dramatically.
·
Medicines were made available without prescription.
They could be bought at any pharmacy
Problems
·
The reforms did improve medical services in Pakistan
but there was always a shortage of doctors and nurses
·
Pakistan had fewer doctors and nurses in 1977 than in
1970
·
The removal of brand names from medicines also saw a
fall in the income of chemists and many international drug companies closed
down their operations in Pakistan, as they could not make a profit
Administrative Reforms:
Reasons for Administrative Reforms
·
To administer his reforms, Bhutto wanted a modern and
efficient civil service
·
He felt that the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) was
corrupt, inefficient and full of unnecessary rules and regulations
Salient Features
·
He reorganised the Civil Service into a smaller number
of levels and unified pay scales
·
This removed some of the old, unnecessary distinctions
between types of civil servant
·
He also reformed entry requirements so that people
could join at any level, even the more senior ones, without having to work
their way up
Problems
·
He said that this would enable the CSP to recruit high
quality staff, but his opponents complained that all he was doing was setting
up a system of patronage where he could reward his followers with posts in the
civil service
The
1977 Election
·
In 1977 Bhutto called a general election
·
He was confident that his government’s record and the
lack of effective opposition would result in an easy PPP victory
Formation of Pakistan National
Alliance
·
However, once the election was called, nine of the
various opposition parties combined to form the Pakistan National Alliance
[PNA]
·
There were two issues which united the opposition in
the election campaign
o
They all wanted to end the rule of Bhutto and the PPP
o
They were united in their desire to rule Pakistan
according to Islamic law
·
The PNA began to attract big audiences at its election
rallies and was clearly gaining support.
·
The government introduced a law limiting public
gatherings to just five people. This was to stop public demonstrations of
support for the PNA and to ensure law and order during the election
Results of 1977 Elections
·
The results of the election showed a landslide victory
for the PPP
·
Of the 200 seats contested it won 154, against the
PNA’s 38
·
There was an immediate outcry of protest from the PNA,
which accused the government of rigging the results and demanded new elections
·
However, there is little doubt that the election
result was correct in showing that the majority of people in Pakistan supported
the PPP.
·
There is little doubt that the government did interfere
with the vote, and on one occasion the results for one constituency were
announced on television before the count had even started
·
Some historians believe such vote rigging was a
serious error because the PPP was likely to have won the election without it
Steps to Downfall
·
Bhutto refused to agree to fresh elections and the PNA
organised mass protests against the government
·
Soon there was rioting in many towns and cities and
the Federal Security Force could not stop the unrest
·
Bhutto was forced to negotiate with the PNA
·
He offered fresh elections in some of the disputed
constituencies
·
To appease the religious factions, banned gambling,
restricted the sale of alcohol and declared Friday to be the weekly holiday.
·
However, at the same time he turned to the army for
help.
·
On 19 April he declared a state of emergency, placing
Pakistan under martial law
·
There were arrests on massive scale
·
Bringing the army into politics is a dangerous game,
as Bhutto found to his cost
·
The army leaders saw the concessions Bhutto was making
as a sign of weakness which would lead to even greater unrest.
·
Consequently, on 5 July the army staged a coup, named
'Operation Fairplay'. Bhutto and all other major political leaders were
arrested that night.
·
Two days later, the Chief of Army Staff, General
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, announced the suspending of the constitution and the
dissolution of all national and provincial assemblies.
·
Once more the army was in control in Pakistan