Local Alignments and Global Politics: Military Bureaucratic Axis, Subaltern Protests and Political Reversals in Post-Colonial Pakistan

Abstract

In the Cold War environment of the 1950s, Pakistan army sought an alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom while they searched for allies in the Middle East and South Asia. At the same time, the military-bureaucratic establishment of Pakistan denied a democratic constitutional regime in the country and slowly transformed East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, into an internal colony. In East Pakistan, the pro-democracy movement was headed by Awami League (AL), a board coalition of constitutional autonomist and radical socialists and communist. Within the AL, Maulana Bhashani, a radical cleric, and his left wigs followers read into the global politics of Cold War alignment between the Pakistan and the USA to be a critical hindrance toward the democratization of politely, but constitutional autonomists within AL remained committed toward the Cold War military alliance. This lead to a split in the AL Consequently, In the wake of Suez War, global politics impinged upon local political alignment as much as local political alignment informed and influenced global politics in Pakistan.