Independence and modern Pakistan

 

After independence, the President of the Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, became the new nation's first Governor-General, and the Secretary General of the Muslim League, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan became the first Prime Minister. From 1947 to 1956, Pakistan was a dominion in the Commonwealth of Nations under two monarchs.^[43] In 1947, George VI relinquished the title of Emperor of India and became King of Pakistan. He retained that title until his death on 6 February 1952, after which Queen Elizabeth II became Queen of Pakistan.^[43] She retained that title until Pakistan became an Islamic and Parliamentary republic in 1956,^[44] but civilian rule was stalled by a military coup led by the Army Commander-in-Chief, General Ayub Khan. The country experienced exceptional growth until a second war with India took place in 1965 and led to economic downfall and internal instability.^[45][46] Ayub Khan's successor, General Yahya Khan (President from 1969 to 1971), had to deal with a devastating cyclone which caused 500,000 deaths in East Pakistan.^[47]

 

President Ayub Khan in 1962 with thenFirst Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. During his rule, the newly established city of Islamabad became the capital, the country began progressing and relations with the West grew.

In 1970, Pakistan held its first democratic elections since independence, that were meant to mark a transition from military rule to democracy, but after the East Pakistani Awami League won, Yahya Khan and the ruling elite in West Pakistan refused to hand over power.^[48][49] There was civil unrest in the East, and the Pakistan Army launched a military operation on 25 March 1971, aiming to regain control of the province.^[48][49] The genocide carried out during this operation led to a declaration of independence and to the waging of a war of liberation by the Bengali Mukti Bahiniforces in East Pakistan, with support from India.^[49][50] However, in West Pakistan the conflict was described as aCivil War as opposed to War of Liberation.[2]

Independent estimates of civilian deaths during this period range from 300,000 to 3 million.^[51] Attacks on Indian military bases by the Pakistan Air Force in December 1971 sparked the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which ended with the formal secession of East Pakistan as the independent state of Bangladesh.^[49]

With Pakistan's defeat in the war, Yahya Khan was replaced by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as Chief Martial Law Administrator. Civilian rule resumed from 1972 to 1977.^[52] During this period Pakistan began to build nuclear weapons; the country's first atomic power plant was inaugurated in 1972.^[53][54] Civilian rule ended with a military coup in 1977, and in 1979 General Zia-ul-Haq became the third military president. Military government lasted until 1988, during which Pakistan became one of the fastest-growing economies in South Asia.^[55] Zia consolidated nuclear development and increased Islamization of the state.^[56] During this period, Pakistan helped to subsidise and distribute US resources to factions of the Mujahideen movement against the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.^[57][58]

Zia died in a plane crash in 1988, and Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was elected as the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan. She was followed by Nawaz Sharif, and over the next decade the two leaders fought for power, alternating in office while the country's situation worsened; economic indicators fell sharply, in contrast to the 1980s. This period is marked by political instability, misgovernance and corruption.^[59][60] In May 1998, while Sharif was Prime Minister, India tested five nuclear weapons and tension with India heightened to an extreme: Pakistan detonated six nuclear weapons of its own in the Chagai-I and Chagai-II tests later in the same month. Military tension between the two countries in the Kargil district led to the Kargil War of 1999, after which General Pervez Musharraf took over through a bloodless coup d'état and assumed vast executive powers.^[61][62]

Musharraf ruled Pakistan as head of state from 1999 to 2001 and as President from 2001 to 2008, a period of extensive economic reform^[63] and Pakistan's involvement in the US-led war on terrorism. On 15 November 2007, Pakistan's National Assembly became the first to complete its full five-year term, and new elections were called.^[64] After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) won the largest number of seats in the 2008 elections, and party member Yousaf Raza Gillani was sworn in as Prime Minister.^[65] Musharraf resigned from the presidency on 18 August 2008 when threatened with impeachment, and was succeeded by Asif Ali Zardari.^[66][67][68] Gillani was disqualified from membership of parliament and as prime minister by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in June 2012.^[69] By its own estimates, Pakistan's involvement in the war on terrorism has cost up to $67.93 billion,^[70][71] thousands of casualties and nearly 3 million displaced civilians.^[72] The Pakistani general election of 2013 saw the Pakistan Muslim League (N) achieve a majority, following which Nawaz Sharif became elected as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, returning to the post for the third time after fourteen years, in a democratic transition.^[73]

Politics

Main articles: Government of Pakistan, Politics of Pakistan, Foreign relations of Pakistan, and Human rights in Pakistan

Parliament of Pakistan.

Pakistan is a democratic parliamentary federal republic with Islam as the state religion. The first Constitution of Pakistan was adopted in 1956 but suspended by Ayub Khan in 1958. The Constitution of 1973—suspended by Zia-ul-Haq in 1977 but reinstated in 1985—is the country's most important document, laying the foundations of the current government.^[74]

Prime minister Secretariat where cabinet secretaries perform their duties.

The bicameral legislature comprises a 100-member Senate and a 342-member National Assembly. Members of the National Assembly are elected through the first-past-the-post system under universal adult suffrage, representing electoral districts known as National Assembly constituencies. According to the constitution, the 70 seats reserved for women and religious minorities are allocated to the political parties according to their proportional representation. The president who is elected by an electoral college is the ceremonial head of the state and is the civilian commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces (with Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee as its principal military adviser), but military appointments and key confirmations in the armed forces are made by the prime minister after reviewing the reports on their merit and performances. Almost all appointed officers in the judicial branches, military chiefs, chairman and branches, and legislatures require the executive confirmation from the prime minister, whom the President must consult, by law. However, the powers to pardon and grant clemency vest with the President of Pakistan.

The prime minister is usually the leader of the largest party or a coalition in the National Assembly. He serves as the head of government and is designated to exercise as the country's chief executive. The premier is responsible for appointing a cabinet consisting of ministers and advisors as well as running the government operations, taking and authorising executive decisions, appointments and recommendations that require executive confirmation of the Prime Minister. Each of the four province has a similar system of government, with a directly elected Provincial Assembly in which the leader of the largest party or coalition is elected Chief Minister. Chief Ministers oversees the provincial government and head the provincial cabinet, it is common in Pakistan to have different ruling parties or coalitions in the provinces. The provincial assemblies have power to make laws and approve provincial budget which is commonly presented by the provincial finance minister every fiscal year.Provincial governors who play role as the ceremonial head of province are appointed by the President.^[74]

The Pakistani military establishment has played an influential role in mainstream politics throughout Pakistan's political history. Presidents brought in by military coups ruled in 1958–1971, 1977–1988 and 1999–2008.^[75]

Foreign relations of Pakistan

Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country (after Indonesia), and its status as a declared nuclear power, being the only Islamic nation to have that status, plays a part in its international role. Pakistan has a fierce independent foreign policy, especially when it comes to issues such as development of nuclear weapons, construction of nuclear reactors, foreign military purchases and other issues that are vital to its national interests. Pakistan has a strategic geo-political location at the corridor of world major maritime oil supply lines, and has close proximity to the resource and oil rich central Asian countries. Pakistan is an important member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is ranked by the US as a major non-NATO ally in the war against terrorism, and has a highly disciplined military, which is the world's eighth-largest standing military force.

Pakistan's foreign policy focuses on security against threats to national identity and territorial integrity, and on the cultivation of close relations with Muslim countries. A 2004 briefing on foreign policy for Pakistani Parliamentarians says, "Pakistan highlights sovereign equality of states, bilateralism, mutuality of interests, and non-interference in each other's domestic affairs as the cardinal features of its foreign policy."^[76] The country is an active member of the United Nations. It is a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in which it has promoted Musharraf's concept of "Enlightened Moderation".^[77][78][79] Pakistan is also a member of Commonwealth of Nations,^[80] the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO)^[81][82] and the G20 developing nations.^[83] India's nuclear tests were seen as a threat to Pakistan and led it to establish itself as a nuclear power.^[84] Pakistan now maintains a policy of "credible minimum deterrence".^[85]

Pakistan maintains good relations with all Arab and most other Muslim countries. Since the Sino-Indian War of 1962, Pakistan's closest strategic, military and economic ally has been China. The relationship has survived changes of governments and variations in the regional and global situation. Chinese cooperation with Pakistan has reached economic high points, with substantial Chinese investment in Pakistan's infrastructural expansion including the Pakistani deep-water port at Gwadar. Both countries have an ongoing free trade agreement. Pakistan has served as China's main bridge between Muslim countries. Pakistan also played an important role in bridging the communication gap between China and the West by facilitating the1972 Nixon visit to China.^[86][87][88]

Pakistan and India continue to be rivals. The Kashmir conflict remains the major point of rift; three of their four wars were over this territory.^[89] Pakistan has had mixed relations with the United States. As an anti-Soviet power in the 1950s and during Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s, Pakistan was one of the closest allies of the US,^[76][90] but relations soured in the 1990s when the US imposed sanctions because of Pakistan's possession and testing of nuclear weapons.^[91] The US war on terrorism led initially to an improvement in the relationship, but it was strained by a divergence of interests and resulting mistrust during the war in Afghanistan and by issues related to terrorism.^{[92][93][94][95]} Since 1948, there has been an ongoing, and at times fluctuating, violent conflict in the southwestern province of Balochistan between various Baloch separatist groups, who seek greater political autonomy, and the central government of Pakistan.^[96]

Administrative divisions

Main articles: Administrative units of Pakistan and Districts of Pakistan

Pakistan is a federation of four provinces: Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, as well as the Islamabad Capital Territory and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in the northwest, which include the Frontier Regions. The government of Pakistan exercises de facto jurisdiction over the western parts of the disputed Kashmir region, organised into the separate political entities Azad Kashmir and Gilgit–Baltistan (formerly Northern Areas). The Gilgit–Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order of 2009 assigned a province-like status to the latter, giving it self-government.^[97]