Pakistan lost Kashmir case by antagonising the Soviet bloc, which vetoed the UN resolution on the disputed territory
RAWALPINDI: This is with reference to Talat Masood’s article, “Shedding the client mentality” (February 18), in which he speaks about Pakistan’s joining of Western defence pacts. It should be kept in mind that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan had declined to join the Western pacts led by the US against the communist bloc headed by the Soviet Union. After the former prime minister’s mysterious assassination, power was usurped by Ghulam Mohammad, a bureaucrat who went on to become the governor-general of Pakistan with the support of Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Ghulam Mohammad had played no part in the creation of Pakistan.
The conspiracy was completed later by the undemocratic dismissal of then prime minister Khawaja Nazimuddin by the governor-general. Khawaja Nazimuddin had also refused to join the Western pacts. Mohammad Ali Bogra, pretty much an unknown entity at the time, was then appointed the prime minister. Now Pakistan finally joined the Western pacts. All these changes took place without the involvement of political parties or of the National Assembly. The pacts clearly stipulated that they were formulated to pose a challenge to the communist powers only — not India. Pakistan was provided very limited quantities of war material with the proviso that it would not be used against India. Thus, Pakistan was cheaply sold to the Western powers as a mercenary client state.
Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan promulgated martial law, abolished general elections while the campaigns were on and became absolute rulers. We later saw Ayub Khan ousting Iskander Mirza forcefully. Throughout Pakistan’s history, dictators created their own self-serving ideologies and held fraudulent referendums while elections gave birth to bogus illegitimate political parties and politicians who led to chaos, including the dismemberment of Pakistan. They led to costly wars and all the trouble that the nation is facing today.
The dictators propounded their own self-serving, anti-people theories, espousing such regressive views as the Pakistani people not being fit for democracy. Many of their acts were those of maniacs.
The rot started early in the country’s history with political leaders being hounded out of power while someone like Ayub Khan kept getting extensions in service. Pakistan lost the Kashmir case by antagonising the Soviet bloc, which vetoed the UN resolution on the disputed territory, which they had supported earlier. Dictators and their illegitimate political offsprings have fully destroyed the basic social, political and constitutional fabric of Pakistan created by the Quaid-e-Azam. As a recent editorial in The International New York Times observed, Pakistan’s worst enemies are Pakistanis themselves.
Mahmud Ahmad Akhtar
Published in The Express Tribune, March 13th, 2015.
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