The Political Outlook in Pakistan

Abstract

THE countries of the Middle East and of South Asia do not, to put it mildly, present a convincing picture of political stability. If India and Pakistan are outstanding, it is because they have inherited not only traditions of sound administration but a genuine adherence to the democratic principle. The position of Pakistan is of particular interest and importance, inasmuch as she has a footing in both areas. It must be admitted, however, that the very fact that Pakistan belongs to both the Middle East and to South Asia, though investing her with additional importance in the international field, is a prime source of internal instability. The two halves of the country, separated by a thousand miles of foreign territory, are of roughly equal importance. West Pakistan contains the Capital, comprises the larger area, and produces the great majority of trained administrators and of officers and recruits for the armed forces. East Pakistan, however, has the advantages of a population of forty-two million souls as compared with only thirty-four million in West Pakistan. Here at once is a basic cause of difficulty in reconciling the claims of the two wings. If it is asked why there should be divergent or conflicting claims, the answer is that the racial, cultural and linguistic differences between the peoples of west and east are such that friction is inevitable. The Punjabis, the Pathans and the Sindis of the west are of Aryan stock, and tend to look down on the Mongoloid races of East Pakistan. The latter resent this attitude of superiority and the remote control of Karachi; they are also devoted to their language, Bengali, and fiercely resist proposals that Urdu, the language of the west, should be adopted as the sole state language of Pakistan. Successive administrations, from the days of the first GovernorGeneral, Mr. Jinnah, and his great Prime Minister, Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, onwards have failed to reconcile these differences and to weld the two wings into a harmonious whole. It is not that East Pakistan is any less patriotic than the other wing, or that it has the slightest desire to break away and rejoin India; but it just will not be treated as a colony. The central administration in Karachi has always done its best, if somewhat clumsily at times, to avoid offending the susceptibilities of