Pakistan and the great powers

The past influences the present. Historians have a term for this phenomenon: they call it "path dependence". In the article today, I will explore how history influenced Pakistan's relations with the United State from the time the former became independent.

The global economic and political systems are now dominated by two great powers - the United States and China. One of these, China, is one of Pakistan's four neighbours. The other, the United States, has become distant from Pakistan which was not the case for several decades following Pakistan's birth on August 14, 1947. American involvement in and with Pakistan goes back even before the country gained independence.

There is now historical evidence that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America's president in the 1940s, pressed Winston Churchill who was Britain's prime minister from 1939 to1945 to grant independence to India, the "crown jewel" in London's colonial holdings. Churchill was not responsive. In fact, he was apoplectic when Gandhi launched his campaign of non-violence to bring to end the rule by Britain. He is reported to have "raged that Gandhi ought to be lain bound head and foot at the gates of Delhi, and trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new viceroy seated on its back."

During the negotiations that led to the signing of the Atlantic Charter - the policy statement that during the period of World War II, laid out the Allied goals for a postwar world order. This exercise evolved into the UN Charter. In the conversations that led to this outcome, Roosevelt fought to include an article on self-determination, much to Winston Churchill's horror. According to As He Saw It by Eliot Roosevelt, the American president's son, Roosevelt tried to convince the British prime minister that free trade among free nations would enrich the world. "Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It's because of them that the people of India and Africa, and all the colonial Near East and Far East are still as backward as they are. "You mentioned India," Churchill growled. "Yes. I can't believe that we can fight a war against slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy," responded the American president.

At the Casablanca Conference of 1943, two years after the signing of the Atlantic Charter, Roosevelt's son recounted a conversation with Churchill his father had relayed to him. "The look that Churchill gets on his face when you mention India! India should be made a commonwealth at once. After a certain number of years - five perhaps, or ten - she should be able to choose whether she wants to remain in the Empire or have complete independence. As a commonwealth she [India] would be entitled to a modern form of government, an adequate health and educational standards. But how can she have these things, when Britain is taking all the wealth of her national resources away from her? Every year the Indian people have one thing to look forward to, like death and taxes. Sure as shooting, they have a famine. The season of the famine they call it." Churchill did not appreciate Roosevelt's comment.

According to Eliot Roosevelt, there is no doubt that Roosevelt, his father, lobbied hard for the freedom of colonised peoples of the world, including India, against Churchill's fierce opposition. His determination is best seen in the conversation between Roosevelt and Churchill quoted in his book. "I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries," Roosevelt said to Churchill. "Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes away wealth in raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country is totally wrong. Twentieth century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth century methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation - by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community," Roosevelt told Churchill.

Churchill did not accept Roosevelt's advice. It was only after he lost the 1945 election and Britain's Labour Party's Clement Attlee became prime minister that Britain decided to end its rule over the Indian colony. He sent Lord Louis Mountbatten to India as the last viceroy with the instruction to preside over the end of the British rule. The new viceroy was given a timetable he was to follow to get his country out of India. This story is told in gripping detail by the American historian Stanley Wolpert who focuses on the last days of the British raj, calling it a "hasty retreat". That retreat resulted in the largest movement of people in human history. Some eight million Muslims left their homes in what was now the predominantly Hindu state of India looking for safety while six million Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan for India. There was a great deal of killing as people were moving on foot from one place to another.

Records explored in some detail, by Dennis Kux, in his 2001 book, The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000, concluded that the United States did not favour the idea of partitioning British India into Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India. Those working in Washington on the United States view of the evolving situation in South Asia were concerned about the emergence of Muslim Pakistan. As the British approached their departure from India, the United States had begun to worry about the expanding reach of what was then called the Soviet Union. Moscow seemed to be eyeing Greece and Turkey as the countries it could bring under its influence.

In early 1947, Raymond Hare, an American diplomat, spent two months in India and met most prominent political leaders in the country. He had an interesting exchange with Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Responding, to Hare's question about Pakistan's foreign policy, Pakistan's founding father said the country he was about to take charge of would be oriented toward the Muslim countries in the Middle East. Since they were weak, "Muslim countries would stand together against possible Russian aggression and would look to the United States for assistance." He went on tell the American diplomat that although he did not share their views, most Indian Muslims thought the United States was unfriendly. They had the impression that the American press and many Americans were against Pakistan. It is safe to conclude that not much has changed in the US-Pakistan relations in the last almost eight decades.