Pakistan movement: Freedom struggle/ Muslim League: the name continues
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Muslim League
By Syed Jaffar Ahmed
As the struggle for Pakistan was launched from the platform of the Muslim League, hopes were pinned with it for leading the country towards the promised goal of independence. However, these hopes were soon frustrated as the League’s weaknesses which had been glossed over by the enthusiasm generated by the freedom movement, came to the fore.
In India, the Congres, having led the Indian independence movement, remained in government and in effective control of the policy making machinery of the state for three decades. Its continuous stay in office was not devoid of adverse aspects but at least it enabled India to achieve certain substantial things like a timely approval of constitution, reorganization of provinces with re-demarcated boundaries, introduction of land reforms, establishment of judicial and administrative institutions on stronger footing, and above all, political stability.
The most useful aspect of a longer spell of democratic governance is that it makes people habituated to democracy, and once this happens, they cannot do without it. It is due to this reason that despite all problems and perversions in its democratic institutions, India has not looked for some alternate system.
In Pakistan, on the other hand, the Muslim League did not play that role due to its inherent weaknesses. Due to the fact that the social organization of the country was under feudal and tribal bondage, and also due to the fact that right from the beginning the bureaucracy took control of the reigns of power.
The Muslim League lost its popular following in the very first decade of independence. In the last sixty years, not only one but several different Muslim Leagues came on the political scene. These Muslim Leagues have played a supportive role for the actual power-holders, the establishment, comprising civil and military bureaucracies. The presence of numerous Muslim Leagues at one point of time has now become a norm rather than an exception. Each one of these Leagues claim itself to be the heir of the original Muslim League but none of them, at least after the 1950s, could trace it’s lineage to the League which created the country.
Most of these Leagues have been built around individuals or were brought into being through official engineering to suit the establishment’s political designs. The Muslim League of 1947 seems to have lost somewhere sometime – perhaps in the late 1950s, or at best, on the occasion of the imposition of martial law in October 1958. What remained thereafter was just a name.
This name has its own importance and significance which has helped it survive. But, to this, we shall return. After the creation of Pakistan, there arose the question of the fate of the All India Muslim League. Interestingly, the partition divided not only India but also the organization which had made it happen. After independence, the League decided that a new organization would be established in Pakistan
distinct from the All India Muslim League. Within the League circles it was discussed that since the main objective of the party had been achieved in the form of the creation of Pakistan, would it not be better if the League dissolved itself, allowing its components to build new organizations along different programs instead of continuing to be associated with the party along with their divergent views, interests and backgrounds?
This did not get much support and the League not only decided to continue as a single party but in the days to come some of its office-bearers even claimed that since the League had created the country, it alone was entitled to rule it.
In 1948, the League’s Council’s session was held on 26 February in Karachi in order to adopt a new constitution for the party. As the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had declined to continue in office as president of the League after assuming the office of the governor general, a new president had to be elected. The Council decided that before the election of the president, the League should organize itself. Choudhry Khaliquzzaman was elected as the chief organizer who established the structure of the League and nominated the office bearers.
Subsequently, these office bearers elected Khaliquzzaman as the president of the League, a decision which, according to some writers, did not please Liaquat Ali Khan. The cold war between the two stalwarts led to the resignation of Khaliquzzaman.
Liaquat Ali Khan also maneuvered to get the League constitution amended enabling the office bearers of the party to assume government responsibilities. In 1950, Liaquat Ali Khan became the president of the party. The decision to unite the government and the party offices showed its adverse implications right in the beginning when during Liaquat’s period, the Muslim League became a government tool losing its independent identity.
This also made the party a vehicle for the self-servers and opportunists to get access to the government ministries and seek official patronage. Not only this, it also encouraged groupings within the party, particularly in the provinces where every leader aspired to come into the government.
These inter-party feuds were facilitated by Liaquat’s decision to patronize one or the other groups rather than keeping himself above the local schism. It was also during Liaquat’s tenure when some senior Leaguers like Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Iftikhar Hussain Mamdot, Pir Sahib Manki Sharif and Mian Iftikharuddin had to leave the Muslim League after becoming disappointed by the government’s authoritarian manner in dealing with political dissent.
Liaquat’s assassination led the League into further disarray. In a palace coup, Governor General Khwaja Nazimuddin was compelled to step down and become the prime minister, while the finance minister, Ghulam Mohammad, a representative of the bureaucracy, was elevated to the office of the governor general.
With all effective powers residing in the governor general, the League President-cum-Prime Minister Khawaja Nazimuddin did not remain as useful for the Leaguers who started looking towards the governor general rather than their president. Ghulam Mohammad also played the differences between the Leaguers and eventually removed Nazimuddin in April 1953. He was replaced by Mohammad Ali Bogra who had hitherto been the ambassador of Pakistan in the United States. Bogra’s installation as the Prime Minister was against parliamentary and democratic norms as he was not the member of the assembly.
Not only this, he was also elected as the president of the Muslim League simply because the League did not want to let the office of the prime minister go to some other party. This also shows how bankrupt the League had become within six years of the creation of Pakistan. In 1955, during Chaudhry Mohammad Ali’s prime ministership the League once again amended its constitution prohibiting its office bearers from assuming government ministries.
Prime Minister Chaudhry Mohammad Ali had to relinquish the League office to which Sardar Abdur Rab Nishter was elected. The separation of the two offices led to another crisis when Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, despite being a League member, patronized alongwith President Iskandar Mirza, the creation of the Republican Party. This widened the gap between Chaudhry Muhammad Ali and Nishter. A weakened prime minister without the backing of his party was of no use for Mirza who lost no time in asking him to go. On Nishter’s death Khan Abdul Qayum Khan was elected as the president of the League.
Known for his stern methods which earned him the title of Frontier’s Mard-e-Aahan, Qayum established his control on the party rather swiftly. Hailing from the middle class, he also tried to expand the League’s powerbase from its feudal constituency to the urban sections of the society. By the end of 1958, he had been able to generate the impression that the League’s bad days had been over and now it could be looked at as a serious contender of power in the future democratic dispensation.
The election had to take place in 1959 and League seemed set to emerge as an important party apart from the Awami League and the National Awami Party. Ayub Khan’s martial law dashed all these expectations.
Ayub Khan’s military takeover was a joint venture of the military and the bureaucracy. Ayub became the Chief Martial Law Administrator while the Chief Secretary Aziz Ahmed was appointed as the Deputy Martial Law Administrator. Ayub began by denouncing the political parties charging them of the political mess that prevailed since 1947. Without accepting the role played by the bureaucracy and the military throughout these years in the making and unmaking of the governments, preventing the constituent assembly from devising a constitution, and even dissolving the constituent assembly once, in 1954, Ayub laid the full responsibility of the past political turmoil on the political parties.
All of them were banned, political activities were prohibited and the constitution was abrogated. Subsequently, the martial law authorities started victimizing the political leaders and under the Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO), prevented a number of political leaders belonging to various political organizations from taking part in politics for as long as seven years from the time the ban was imposed on them.
In 1962, when Ayub introduced his constitution lifting the martial law, the need of political parties resurfaced. Though the elections to the National Assembly was held on non-party basis, the very first session of the Assembly showed, as observed by Herbert Feldman, a clear division between the pro-government members and those opposed to it.
The pro-government constellation needed to be brought under one discipline which necessitated that they were made members of a party. Moreover, since the pro-government MNAs also tended to extend their influence, outside the legislature as well, a political organization was important for them. Thus there emerged the Convention Muslim League.
The adoption of the League by Ayub Khan had a background. As many a member of the legislature belonged, in the past, to the League they proposed to Ayub Khan that he should restore the League and join it. Khaliquzzaman was among those who offered presidentship of the League to Ayub Khan. Since the proposal could not be carried through the Muslim League Council where the pro-Ayub members were in minority, it was decided that the decision be taken by the Convention of the League. As hoped, the Convention in Karachi elected Ayub Khan as the president.
The Leaguers opposed to Ayub Khan restored the League through its Council giving to it the title of the Council Muslim League. Khwaja Nazimuddin was elected its president.
Ayub Convention Muslim League survived as long as Ayub rule did. In all these years it was in office both at the centre and the provinces of East and West Pakistan. Primarily manned by the landed aristocracy, tribal chieftains and the nouveau riche class of businessmen, the Convention League operated on bureaucratic backing and in return served to ensure central bureaucratic control of the localities in the far flung areas of the country.
However, when in 1968-69, a popular apprising took place across the country against Ayub’s authoritarian regime and its economic policies which had widened the gap between the rich and the poor and between different regions of the country, neither his oppressive administrative tools nor his political organization could succeed in controlling the mass unrest.
Finally, Ayub handed over power to General Yahya Khan abrogated his own constitution and imposed martial law. As Ayub also quitted politics, his League elected a former central minister and speaker of the National Assembly Fazlul Qadir Chaudhry as its president. But with Ayub’s departure, his partymen started deserting it, as should have been expected. In the 1970 elections, the party contested in both parts of the country but could not win more than two seats.
When the Muslim League was banned in 1958, alongwith other political organizations, it was headed by Qayum Khan who was EBDOed by Ayub Khan. However, the iron-man of the past could not withstand the iron fist of a military regime and offered apology. Towards the end of Ayub’s rule, it was proposed that Qayum Khan should be brought in the Convention Muslim League as the vice president, but this could not materialize. Qayum Khan established his own Muslim League, and contested the 1970 elections in which his party won nine seats.
On Bhutto’s coming into power in December 1971, Qayum Khan joined the government as the interior minister. His alliance with the PPP was one of the major sources behind the subsequent conflict between the government and the National Awami party led by Khan Abdul Wali Khan. Qayum Khan came out of Bhutto’s cabinet on the eve of the 1977 elections in which his party could win only one seat.
The Council Muslim League worked under Khwaja Nazimuddin till his death in 1964. In the last days of his life he had infused some life in his faction of the League which had joined the Combined Opposition Party and had fielded. Ms. Fatima Jinnah against Ayub Khan in the presidential election. A lesser known Leaguer from East Pakistan, Muhammad Afzal was elected as the president of the Council League. In 1967, Mian Mumtaz Daultana came to lead it after completing his period of disqualification under the EBDO.
In the 1970 elections, the Council League got nine seats in the National Assembly. Finding not much for him in politics in the new Pakistan, Daultana accepted to become the country’s ambassador in England. To his post was elected Hasan A. Shaikh while Malik Qasim was made the general secretary of the party. In 1973, the Council Muslim League was reorganized with Pir Pagara as its President. In the same year, the opposition parties made the United Democratic Front with Muslim League as one of its components. As the UDF also had, in its fold, the National Awami Party, some of the Leaguers resented their party’s joining of the UDF as they regarded the NAP as anti-Pakistan.
A group of the League under Zahid Sarfraz disassociated itself from the party on this count, and established its own Muslim League known as Zahid Sarfraz group.
The 1977 martial law imposed by General Ziaul Haq, not only removed Bhutto from power, but also broke the opposition ranks after using the Pakistan National Alliance formed to contest elections against Bhutto’s PPP. Muslim League welcomed the martial law and some of its leaders even joined the cabinet of General Zia.
In 1985, Zia held elections under foreign pressure, but allowed these on non-party basis. After the elections, he hand-picked Muhammad Khan Junejo to become the Prime Minister. As happened in the past in Ayub’s time, once again the non-party assembly soon felt the need to transform itself into a one with parties.
So, Junejo who belonged to the Pagara Muslim League became the president of the party. Pagara interpreted it as he had given Junejo on loan, implying that the actual leadership of the party would rest with him. In 1988, Junejo was removed in a very uncermonial way by the military ruler but the four chief ministers who were also the provincial presidents of the League opted to offer their loyalty to General Zia rather than their party leader.
These chief ministers and some of the central ministers in Junejo’s cabinet formed their own Muslim League under a League veteran Fida Mohammad Khan. The chief minister of the Punjab Mian Nawaz Sharif became the secretary general of the group
However, before the 1988 elections, these groups were united so that they could neutralize the People’s Party.
In the 1990s, Muslim League came to be associated with the name and leadership of Mian Nawaz Sharif. Once a protégé of establishment, Sharif, amassed power gradually, which brought him into conflict with the establishment twice. In 1993, he was expelled from office, restored by the Supreme Court, and then removed again. His second tenure as Prime Minister came to end when the military removed him in October 1999 in retaliation to his attempt to remove the Chief of the Army Staff.
Nawaz Sharif’s removal led to the disintegration of his party as a number of former ministers shifted their loyalty away from him and formed the Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam). Before the 2002 elections, various small groups operating under the name of Muslim League, like Chittha group, Manzoor Wattoo group, Ejazul Haq group and Pagara group merged in the Muslim League (Q). The Pagara group came out of it after a very short time and restored itself. The loyalists of Nawaz Sharif continued to work under the Muslim League (N).
One question that the above survey poses is as to why League could not become a strong party that could have played a prominent role in the history of the country for any significant period of time. The question may be generalized to inquire as to why political parties as a whole could not effectively play an effective role in directing policies of the state and the methods of statecrafts. A number of reasons can be cited in this respect, some of them being more relevant for the League while the others having relevance in the context of the entire political spectrum.
The most decisive of all factors is the imbalance of the institutions of which dates back to the colonial system of control. As the colonial rule thrived on its bureaucracy, extolled by it as its steel frame, the institution, historically, had an edge over other institutions.
When the same pattern of governance was transmitted to the new country in 1947, the political forces were given a secondary role while all crucial decisions were taken by a coterie of former ICS officers who had opted for Pakistan. In the 1950s, an ambitious military high command was brought in the power structure by the bureaucracy, which was followed by Western and particularly the American’s support.
The dominance of the military bureaucracy nexus was strengthened by the nature of social cleavages in Pakistani society where the propertied classes – the landed aristocracy, trading and industrial class, etc. – were created and promoted under colonial patronage and did not have an original strength to contest for political roles independently. They were groomed in subordination. After independence, they fulfilled this role as before.
Second, the civil-military bureaucratic dominance could not allow a genuine and sustainable political process in the country lest it disturbed the desired imbalance of forces. In the absence of continued political process, those roles could not be created which are fulfilled by the political parties in democratic systems. The political parties in fact mediate between the state and the society in democratic systems but if a state does not accept to be directed by the society and respond to its priorities, it does not realize or accept the need of mediation or a mediator.
If the sole purpose of the state is to control and direct the society then it would look for tools of control rather than institutions of mediation. In the case of Pakistan, political parties were allowed only a complimentary role by the establishment. The autonomous existence of the political parties, their championing the cause of the people and claims to power have never been liked or encouraged.
This is one major reason that the populist political parties are so strongly discouraged by the establishment despite the fact that these parties have their own inadequacies and have never been able to fulfill their promises to the people. But the very fact that the people continue to rally around them make them suspectable in the eyes of the powers that be.
Third, the ruling establishment has preferred to create political parties whenever need arose for them. It started with the formation of the Republican Party in 1955. In 1962 the Convention Muslim League was established. Similarly, during General Zia’s rule, the League was organized under Junejo. After he was removed, Nawaz Sharif was brought in to lead the party.
His removal was followed by the creation of PML (Q). All these constellations have faced a paradox. They are brought in office with the demand that they deliver. If they do not do so, they are removed for being incompetent. This is what happened with Nazimuddin, Mohammad Ali Bogra, I.I. Chundrigar, and in our times, Zafarullah Jamali. If they start delivering they acquire power and popularity, which becomes threatening and hence they are sent back. This happened with Junejo and Sharif.
Finally, as to why the Muslim League’s name has survived to this day, despite the fact that the original Muslim League did not continue for long after 1947. One major reason is the name itself which carries respect and emotional attachment for being the name of the organization which founded the country.
This name enables a party to use all the symbols and icons of the Pakistan movement demonstrating its legitimacy which it seldom actually has. That a political party claiming itself to be the heir of the Muslim League of the past, is also expected to have a long-term programme for the socio-economic development of the country and a democratic manifesto, has not been taken care of by many a League group. The League would continue to survive in name as long as it suits the establishment. But if a League, or any other party, succeeds in redefining the contours of power in Pakistan, it will earn a name for itself.
The writer is professor of Politics and History and Director, Pakistan Study Centre, Karachi University.
