Best 8 quotes of Ayesha Jalal on MyQuotes

A psychology of looting and disregard for the rule of law took hold of the ruling coterie in Pakistan early on. The initial gold mine was the allotment of properties abandoned by Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab and, subsequently, also in Sindh. Senior civil bureaucrats in cahoots with prominent Muslim League politicians had the pick of the field but did not fail to pass on some of the lesser goods as favors to those with contacts. Individual citizens with little or no influence had to settle for whatever was left over, which in most cases was very modest.

Bhutto decided to fulfll his long- held dream of using Pakistan’s existing nuclear energy infrastructure to embark on a rapid nuclear weapon’s program. As minister for fuel, power, and national resources in Ayub Khan’s cabinet, he played an active part in the formation of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). A strong proponent of acquiring nuclear capability, Bhutto faced stern opposition from Ayub who was worried about the repercussions this could have on Pakistan’s pro- Western foreign policy.

Except in Punjab and the NWFP, the central government’s Kashmir policy had little support in Sindh or Balochistan and even less in East Bengal. Instead of serving the people, civil servants and their allies in the army hoisted the political leaders with their Kashmir petard to become the veritable masters of the manor through autocratic and unconstitutional means.

In the absence of democratic politics, the dominance of a predominantly Punjabi civil bureaucracy and army heightened the grievances of non-Punjabi provinces and the linguistic groups within them. Te entrenched institutional supremacy of a Punjabi army and federal bureaucracy, not Punjab’s dominance over other provinces per se, had emerged as the principal impediment to restoring democratic processes in Pakistan.

Pakistan is a visibly perturbed and divided nation. Its people are struggling to find an answer to the mother of all questions: what sort of a Pakistan do they want along a spectrum of choices, ranging from an orthodox, religious state to a modern, enlightened one?

Sudden and unexplained deaths of key politicians have been a recurring feature of Pakistani history since 1951. Oft en the reasons have been patently evident.

The breakup of Pakistan was the result of the autocratic policies of its state managers rather than the inherent difficulties involved in welding together linguistically and culturally diverse constituent units. Islam proved to be dubious cement not because it was unimportant to people in the different regions. Pakistan’s regional cultures have absorbed Islam without losing affinity to local languages and customs. With some justification, non- Punjabi provinces came to perceive the use of Islam as a wily attempt by the Punjabi- led military–bureaucratic combine to deprive them of a fair share of political and economic power. Non- Punjabi antipathy toward a Punjabi- dominated center often found expression in assertions of regional distinctiveness.

With the potentially disruptive issue of the role of Islam in the state temporarily out of the way, the praetorian guard and its mandarin friends sanguinely accepted the constituent assembly’s stance on fundamental rights. As they knew only too well, the proof of the pudding lay in the eating.