The New Pakistan: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

P AKISTAN without East Bengal remains an anomalous creation-awkward geographically, demographically, structurally and symbolically. The task of creating a viable state would be difficult even without the trauma surrounding the demise of the former Pakistan, and the coming to power of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who has now had more than two years in office. With the removal of Bangladesh, the present state of Pakistan is a more coherent entity than formerly, but problems of state-building remain severe. The building blocks of statehood are remarkably diverse. At the time of independence in 1947, approximately half the total area of West Pakistan was under princely rule; the British presence had been differentially imposed, resulting in a collection of arrangements and treaties that left to Jinnah's creation a variegated pattern of sub-units, and a major problem of state formation that has been somewhat obscured by the overriding preoccupation with East Bengal.1 The practical problems of internal consolidation were made more difficult in the original state by the concentration of population on the two half-provinces of West Punjab and East Bengal. Yet the situation is no less anomalous today with the Federation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan composed of one major concentration in the Punjab, totalling approximately 6o per cent of total population, with the balance dispersed over wide areas. Institutional patterns were equally unbalanced. Pakistan appeared to begin its existence in 1947 with a strong political apparatus and disorganized civilian and military bureaucracies. However, within a few years the situation' was reversed, with the Muslim League virtually eliminated at the polls in East Pakistan, and reassertion of the power of the military and the civil service. Mr. Jinnah's preference for a vice-regal authority pattern, at the outset of Pakistan's political existence, reinforced the trend to increasing reliance on