KARACHI: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani’s impassioned speech on Wednesday raised the question of the legitimacy of alternative forms of government which have rebelled against the parliamentary form of government, considered to be the basis of Pakistan’s creation.

“I have a basic question; from whom, from where and how does the state of Pakistan or Pakistan’s establishment get the right, power and legitimacy, that whenever martial law was imposed they could change the intent and purpose for which the state of Pakistan was created,” he said. The awe-struck audience had no response; they had gathered at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology to attend the seminar marking 40 years of the 1977 military coup by Gen Ziaul Haq, overthrowing the Bhutto government. Titled ‘July 5, 1977: When democracy was derailed in Pakistan’, the seminar aimed to address the repercussions of the military coup on present-day Pakistan.

Senator Rabbani gave a history lesson on how Pakistan was envisioned to be “a progressive state, a welfare state, a state where minorities were free to profess their religion, a state which was to be governed by its elected representatives”. However, military dictators, and in particular Gen Zia’s 11-year rule, caused irreparable damage to the ethos of the country, and the citizens are still bearing the ramifications of living in a country which has become an “antithesis of what the Quaid had imagined”.

Bhutto’s nationalisation policy did not harm Pakistan’s economy: Kaiser Bengali

“There were two schools of thought at the time of Pakistan’s creation — the progressive liberals and religious school of thought, a majority of whom were against the creation of the country. Ziaul Haq exploited this division and turned Pakistan into a theocratic state,” he said. As a result, he elaborated, we have examples of Mashal Khan in front of us. “The intolerance and sectarianism we see in society today has stemmed from the policies during the martial law era of Ziaul Haq.”

Renowned economist Dr Kaiser Bengali said: “For 30 years after Partition, the country had experienced a period of rapid economic development with massive creation of economic assets. July 5, 1977 ended a golden era of Pakistan’s economic history with the death of the development state and the creation of a security state.”

Propaganda had led people to believe that there was never a golden era of economic activity, he said. This was in reference to the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that preceded Zia’s coup where economic prosperity was impressive. However, he said, credit had never been given where it was due. Citing statistics, he gave a presentation of how economic prosperity during Bhutto’s government was an example never seen before.

“One of the most contentious issues is of nationalisation which is popularly believed to have harmed Pakistan’s economy and damaged private-sector confidence. Both these are incorrect.”

The facts, he said, provided evidence that nationalisation under Mr Bhutto did not harm the economy at all but merely shifted the economic activity from the private to the public sector. The policies formed, he said, laid the foundation of the economic progress in the future. “After the devastation of war and the breakup of the country in 1971, the economy did not collapse. This was because the policies pursued by Bhutto saved the economy through nationalisation and public-sector investment.”

Dr Bengali’s presentation had many statistics reflecting the economy of the Bhutto government. However, it would have helped if the sources from where those facts and figures were picked were shared with the audience.

Rights trampled by Zia regime

Women’s rights activist Anis Haroon recalled how Zia’s era was the cause of regression of fundamental human rights, in particular of women and the religious minorities. She gave an honest appraisal of how political leaders supported martial law and how later, regrets set in.

“It is only in retrospect do we realise how far we have regressed,” she said. “The kind of repression of women we witnessed during Zia’s era we had never witnessed before with examples such as the Hudood Ordinance.”

Ms Haroon said the mistakes made during Mr Bhutto’s government caused damage to the country. “Wrong policies such as supporting the army action, the sidelining of the Left in Pakistan, declaring the Ahmadis as non-Muslims are some examples.”

Karamat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research discussed how martial law usurped the rights of the labourer, especially during Zia’s era. “Bhutto’s Labour Policy of 1972 should be carefully revisited as it is considered to be one of the best of the six labour policies announced in Pakistan,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2017