Illustration by Abro
Much has been written about how the Gen Zia dictatorship in Pakistan turned the country’s politics and society on their head. There is also an abundance of literature detailing the many policies imposed during the dictatorship which marked the proliferation of religious extremism as a political act and, subsequently a mindset in Pakistan.
Even though most authors and commentators in this context have correctly surveyed the damage that the Zia regime dealt to the country, very few have shed any light on how or why Zia was, for so long, able to play havoc with the constitution and society of Pakistan. There are ready-made answers to this question, such as the way his regime was financially and politically supported by the US and Saudi Arabia and the way he used the military and police to severely suppress dissent.
There is nothing wrong or exaggerated about this. Yet, what most commentators miss out is the fact that, on various occasions, his regime did manage to draw support from some large segments of the society. In The Nature and Direction of Change (1980), the late scholar and author Khalid Bin Sayeed writes that, during the protest movement against the Z.A. Bhutto regime in March and April of 1977, a large number of urban middle- and lower middle-class men and women participated.
Much has been written about the damage that Gen Zia’s regime dealt to the country, but few talk about how it co-opted large segments of society
The movement promised an ‘Islami nizaam’ (Islamic system) and was being bankrolled by some industrialists. Riaz Hassan, in an intriguing essay authored for the July 1985 issue of Middle Eastern Studies, writes that the call for an Islami nizaam held a lot of traction for many members of the above-mentioned classes.
Hassan writes that an increase in the rate of literacy from 1972 onwards meant that more and more urban Pakistanis were exposed to the writings of scholars operating outside the intellectual and political edifice of Muslim Modernism that, till then, was being aggressively promoted by the state.
By the late 1970s, they had begun to question the sincerity and feasibility of the Muslim Modernism project. Due to the impact of the loss of East Pakistan
in 1971, many tended to agree with the anti-modernists that the project had been selective and engineered to keep the economic and political elite in power.
According to Hassan, the rapid increase in the urban population meant that a large segment of the population led a highly precarious existence. This frustration generated a considerable amount of disillusionment with the modernist governments and their policies of economic and social development.
Hassan adds that the persistent insecurity of urban existence among many shopkeepers, traders and their families — over the years — resulted in the emergence of various religious movements. The number of mosques in the cities multiplied and, through them, religious influence permeated social life.
Combined with the social consequences of the rising rate of literacy, the continuous economic and social insecurity experienced by the aforementioned segments provided considerable support for the Islamisation process, especially when Zia presented it as a framework for the social, economic and psychological well-being of the masses.