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July 21, 2002
EXCERPTS: Parties of yore
Prof K.K. Aziz describes the political parties in post-Independence Pakistan
During the first seven years, when the Muslim League was in a majority everywhere, the opposition was neither strong nor numerous. It was a period of recurring crises and a new-born nationalism, in which criticism was at times equated with treason. The speakers of the legislatures adopted the American tradition whereby the presiding officer openly sides with the party that elected him and is not non-partisan in his dealing with the opposition.
With the eclipse of the Muslim League hopes of a well-knit opposition were dashed by the emergence of a large number of groups which were unable to combine together in office or in opposition. The lines of demarcation between the government and the opposition were never clear; shifting minorities supported succeeding governments. The opposition itself contained elements more heterogeneous than those in the government. Where the opposition was strong enough to threaten the existence of the government, there was the risk of instability.
Mergers and alliances were not unknown and some examples of these are: the United Front in 1954; Pakistan National Party in 1956; National Awami Party in 1957; and the Pakistan Nizam-i-Islam in 1958. These mergers were presumably made as a substitute for a vocal and effective opposition. But they had short lives because of internal disunity. If the alliances came into office, there were quarrels over the spoils of office; if they lost the elections or failed to capture office, they were frustrated and disintegrated, as was the case with the United Front.
All the parties suffered from a woeful lack of discipline. Members of the same party adopted conflicting stands on the same issue in the House and gave contradictory statements in public. The best example of this was the attitude adopted by the Republican Party and the Awami League towards the One Unit scheme (the plan for merging all the provinces in the western wing into one consolidated West Pakistan province).
A very large number of parliamentary representatives left their parties without even taking the trouble of resigning from their seats. The Republican Party was made up entirely of the Muslim Leaguers who had deserted their party to support Dr Khan Sahib. The Azad Pakistan Party split in 1955 because a faction within it charged the leadership with dictatorial and Communist tendencies.
The Awami League split in 1957 when Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani walked out with a large group. One characteristic feature was that the person who left a party to join another was given the same prominent place in the new party as he had occupied in the old one; there was no starting from the bottom.
All the parties had the same things to say on most of the important topics — refugee rehabilitation, Kashmir, land reform, industrialization, protection of the minorities, development of social services, eradication of corruption, an “independent” foreign policy, etc. This confused the electorate, facilitated floor-crossing and killed party individuality. It made personalities more important than the parties.
There was only a pretence of democracy within the parties. Elections were rigged. No party ever held a referendum on any vital issue, even when the party was split grievously over it.
The Muslim League had its National Guards. The Red Shirts and the Ahrars were in uniform. Uniformed groups of militants within the parties played an important role. How seriously the parties took this aspect of party organization was shown in 1958 when the government banned the use of all paramilitary groups for political purposes.
Leaders were always more important than the programmes. Politics was intensely personal, not doctrinaire. The following factors explain the phenomenon. The popular attitude towards the leaders was coloured by religious feelings, as in the Islamic parties. Most of the leaders were also founders of their groups or cliques or factions and thus enjoyed the prestige of the founding-fathers, like Suhrawardy in the Awami League, Mian Iftikharuddin in the Azad Pakistan Party, and the Nawab of Mamdot in the Jinnah Muslim League.
The parties mostly adopted the presidential form of government whereby the chairman of the party in the country was also its leader in the parliament. The general lack of education and political maturity made the rank and file subservient to the leaders. Recurring crises in the country made the people look to the leaders as the only guides and protectors. The lack of good second-level leaders who worked on local or divisional levels helped to concentrate power in the top leadership.
The identity of party programmes naturally focused all rivalry on the individual leaders. The leaders’ names were associated with their parties. When a leader crossed the floor, his entire following deserted the party and gave him its company. Further, there were examples of imposed leadership. Several times a prime minister or a provincial chief minister was removed and his successor was brought from outside and the party was forced to accept him as its leader, for instance, Muhammad Ali Bogra, Firoz Khan Noon, Sardar Abdur Rashid, Dr Khan Sahib, etc.
Excerpted with permission from
Studies in history and politics
By K.K. Aziz
Vanguard Books, 45 The Mall, Lahore. Tel: 042-7243783
Email: vbl@brain.net.pk
ISBN 969-402-358-0
379pp. Rs695
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