AYUB AND YAHYA’S ERA

Ayub Khan’s Era:

Constitutional and legal reforms:
A Constitutional Commission was set-up under the Supreme Court to
implement the work on the Constitution that was led by Chief
JusticeMuhammad Shahabuddin and Supreme Court justices.[56] The
Commission reported in 1961 with its recommendations but President
Ayub remained unsatisfied; he eventually altered the constitution so that
it was entirely different from the one recommended by the Shahabuddin
Commission.[56] The Constitution reflected his personal views of politicians
and the restriction of using religions in politics.[56] His presidency restored
the writ of government through the promulgated constitution and
restored political freedom by lifting the martial law enforced since 1958.
The new Constitution respected Islam but did not declare Islam as state
religion and was viewed as a liberal constitution.[56] It also provided for
election of the President by 80,000 (later raised to 120,000) Basic
Democrats who could theoretically make their own choice but who were
essentially under his control.[56] He justified this as analogous to
the American Electoral College and cited Thomas Jefferson as his
inspiration. The Ayub administration "guided" the print
newspapers though his takeover of key opposition papers and, while Ayub
Khan permitted a National Assembly, it had only limited powers.
On 2 March 1961, he passed and signed the "Muslim Family Laws" bill
through the ordinance under which unmitigated polygamy was abolished,
consent of the current wife was made mandatory for a second marriage,
brakes were also placed on the practice of instant divorce where men
could divorce women by saying:"I divorce you" three times under Islamic
tradition.
The Arbitration Councils were set up under the law in the urban and rural
areas to deal with cases of: (a) grant of sanction to a person to contract a
second marriage during the subsistence of a marriage; (b) reconciliation of
a dispute between a husband and a wife; (c) grant of a maintenance
allowance to the wife and children.
Economy and infrastructure:
Industrialization and rural development through constructing
modern national freeways are considered his greatest achievements and
his era is remembered for successful industrialization in the impoverished
country.[60] Strong emphasis on capitalism and foreign direct
investment (FDI) in the industry is often regarded as "Great Decade" in the
history of the country (both economical and political history).[60]The
"Great Decade" was celebrated, which highlighted the development plans
executed during the years of Ayub's rule, the private consortium
companies, industries and credited with creating an environment where
the private sector was encouraged to establish medium and small-scale
industries in Pakistan.[60] This opened up avenues for new job
opportunities and thus the economic graph of the country started
rising.[60] He oversaw the development and completion of mega projects
such as hydroelectric dams, power stations, and barrages in all over the
country.[61]:81 During 1960–66, the annual GDP growth was recorded at
6.8%.[62]
Several energy conservation programs were completed such as World's
one of the largest dam, the Mangla Dam and several small dams
and water reservoirs in West Pakistan while completing one dam in East
Pakistan: Kaptai Dam.[61]:85 Plans toward harnessing energy from nuclear
sources were authorized by President Ayub against the wishes of his own
administration over the cost of nuclear power plants.[63]:54 Initially, there
were two nuclear power plants to be established in the country: one was
in Karachi and the second one in Dhaka.[63]:54 It was Dr. Abdus Salam who
had personally approved the project in Karachi against the wishes of his
own government, while the project in East was never materialized.[64]
Extensive education reforms were supposedly carried out and 'scientific
development efforts' also supposedly made during his years.[60] These
supposed policies could not be sustained after 1965, and the economy
collapsed and led to the economic declines which he was unable to
control.[65][66]
He also introduced a new curricula and textbooks for universities and
schools after building many public-sector universities and schools were
built during his era.[67] He also introduced agricultural reforms according
to which no one could occupy land less than 12.5 acres (500 irrigated land
and 1000 unirrigated.) An oil refinery was established in Karachi, and
these reforms led to 15% GNP growth of the country that was three times
greater than that of India.[60] Despite the increase in the GNPgrowth, the
profit and revenue was gained by the famous 22 families of the time that
controlled 66% of the industries and landof the country and 80% of
the banking and insurance companies of Pakistan.[60]
Defence spending:
During his era, the Navy was able to induct submarines and slowly
modified itself in terms of acquisitions of warships.[29]However, he
drastically reduced funding of military in 1950s and prioritized less on the
issue of nuclear weapons in 1960s.[63][68]:55 Major procurement of weapons
for the military was relied from the United States's donations. [68] Major
funding was made available for military acquisitions and procurement
towards conventional weaponry for conventional defence.[68] In 1960s,
Pakistani military had American produced conventional weaponry in
terms Jeep CJ, M48 Patton, M24 Chaffee, and M16 rifles, F-86,
and submarine– all acquired through Foreign Military Sales program.[68] In
1961, President Ayub started the nation's full fledge space program that
was established with the cooperation of the Air Force, and created
civilian Suparco that launched unmanned space missions throughout
1960s.[63]:235–236
He focused the nuclear issue towards civil power and bypassed
recommendations towards military-use of nuclear technologyand
reportedly spend ₨. 721 million on civil-use of technology in terms of
education and nuclear power plants.[63]:53 Finance minister Muhammad
Shoaib argued against spending on nuclear technology and was against of
establishing a nuclear power plant in Karachi over on cost.[63]:54 It was
Dr. Abdus Salam who had personally approved the project against the
wishes of his own government.[64]
After the Sino-Indian war in 1962, the military appointments in civilian
institutions grew further and defence spending on budget hiked. [40] The
physical size of the Pakistan Army's ground troops exponentially grew and
the size of military budget grew from 5.79% (1960s) to 9.78% (1966) until
being brought down to 6.1% (1967).[40]
Foreign policy:
The foreign relations with the United States and European Union were
prioritized and were main feature of his foreign policy while
downplaying foreign relations with the Soviet Union. While he enjoyed
support from President Dwight Eisenhower in 1950s and convinced the
United States alongside with Prime Minister Ali Khan to forge military
relations in an alliance against regional communism.[69] His obsession
towards modernization of the armed forces in shortest time possible saw
the relations with United States as the only way to achieve his
organization and personal objectives as he argued against civilian
supremacy that would affect the American interests in the region as a
result of an election. Leasing an airbase in Peshawar in 1950s, the Central
Intelligence Agency's spy activities grew immensely during his presidency
but such activities were exposed in 1960 when the Soviet Union's air
defence intercept and shotdown the U-2 plane by the S-75 missile, and
captured its pilot.[69] This incident severely compromised the national
security of Pakistan that brought the Soviet ire on Pakistan but President
Ayub had all knowledge of the operation and full aware of what happened
in the Soviet Union.[69] While in United Kingdom to pay state visit, the CIA
station chief told President Ayub who shrugged his shoulders and said that
he had expected this would happen at some point.[69]
Ayub Khan had to publicly offer his apologies to the Soviet Union
after USSR Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev made a threat to
bomb Peshawar.[63]:43 President Ayub directed initiatives to Foreign
Office to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union by facilitating state visits
of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin and Soviet Foreign minister Gromyko in
Pakistan on a condition of downplaying relations with the United
States.[63]:43
In 1960, he signed the historic frontier agreement with China despite the
US urgings and was a significant event in history of Cold war where a non-
communist country had entered in alliance with communist country.[70]
In 1961–65, Ayub lost much of the support from President John
Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson who sought closer relations with
India and placed an embargo on both nations during the war in 1965.[71] In
1966–67, he wrestled with the United States' dictation on country's
foreign policy while strengthening relations with Soviet Union and China,
whereas he successfully signed a border agreement to resolve border
disputes in 1960s.[72] Relations with the Soviet Union were eventually
normalized when the Soviets facilitated a peace treaty with India in 1965,
and reached a trade treaty the following year.[73]:171–175 Despite initiatives
made towards normalizing with Soviet Union, Ayub Khan remained
inclined towards the United States and western world, having well-
received President Johnson in Karachi in 1967. His legacy remains mixed;
he is credited with an ostensible economic prosperityand
what supporters dub the "decade of development", but is criticized for
beginning the first of the intelligence agencies' incursions into the national
politics, for concentrating corrupt wealth in a few hands, and segregated
policiesthat later led to the breaking-up of nation's unity that resulted in
the creation of Bangladesh.
The secularist orientation of Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s first military ruler, was
initially welcomed by many Shias. But after the worst anti-Shia violence in
Pakistan so far took place in Muharram in 1963, the government
“balanced” repressive action against Sunni extremists with some
restrictions on Shia mourning processions. A new Shia movement led by
Sayyid Muhammad Dihlavi was launched in 1964 pressing for three
demands, namely separate religious instruction, exclusive Shia control
over their religious endowments (Auqaf), and freedom and protection of
their religious processions. It took almost five years of increasing
communal mobilization to get official acceptance of the three demands by
the outgoing Ayub Khan government. In the meantime an internal Shia
conflict started between the professional preachers (Zakirs), who
dominated the religious lives of the common believers, and some zealous
religious scholars (Ulama), who accused the “greedy” Zakirs of distorting
Shia beliefs with self-fabricated stories and superstitions.

Yahya Khan’s Era:

Ayub Khan was President of Pakistan for most of the 1960s, but by the end
of the decade, popular resentment had boiled over against him. Pakistan
had fallen into a state of disarray, and long ongoing civil unrest in East
Pakistan evolved into a mass uprising in January of the year. After having
held unsuccessful talks with the opposition, Ayub Khan handed over
power to Yahya Khan in March, who immediately imposed martial law.
When Yahya assumed the office on 25 March 1969, he inherited a two-
decade constitutional problem of inter-provincial ethnic rivalry between
the Punjabi-Pashtun-Mohajir dominated West Pakistan province and the
ethnically Bengali Muslim East Pakistan province. In addition, Yahya also
inherited an 11 year old problem of transforming an essentially one man
ruled country to a democratic country, which was the ideological basis of
the anti-Ayub movement of 1968–69. As an Army Chief Yahya had all the
capabilities, qualifications and potential. But Yahya inherited an extremely
complex problem and was forced to perform the multiple roles
of caretaker head of the country, drafter of a provisional constitution,
resolving the One Unit question, satisfying the frustrations and the sense
of exploitation and discrimination successively created in the East Wing by
a series of government policies since 1948.
The American political scientist Lawrence Ziring observed that,
Yahya Khan has been widely portrayed as a ruthless uncompromising
insensitive and grossly inept leader ... While Yahya cannot escape
responsibility for these tragic events, it is also on record that he did not
act alone ... All the major actors of the period were creatures of a historic
legacy and a psycho-political milieu which did not lend itself to
accommodation and compromise, to bargaining and a reasonable
settlement. Nurtured on conspiracy theories, they were all conditioned to
act in a manner that neglected agreeable solutions and promoted violent
judgments.[22]
Yahya Khan attempted to solve Pakistan's constitutional and inter-
provincial/regional rivalry problems once he took over power from Ayub
Khan in March 1969. The tragedy of the whole affair was the fact that all
actions that Yahya took, although correct in principle, were too late in
timing, and served only to further intensify the political polarisation
between the East and West wings.

 He dissolved the one unit restoring the pre-1955 provinces of West

Pakistan
 He promised free direct, one man one vote, fair elections on adult
franchise, a basic human right which had been denied to the Pakistani
people since the pre-independence 1946 elections by political
inefficiency, double play and intrigue, by civilian governments from
1947 to 1958 and by Ayub's one-man rule from 1958 to 1969.
However, dissolution of one unit did not lead to the positive results that it
might have led to in case "One Unit" was dissolved earlier. Yahya also
made an attempt to accommodate the East Pakistanis by abolishing the
principle of parity, thereby hoping that greater share in the assembly
would redress their wounded ethnic regional pride and ensure the
integrity of Pakistan. Instead of satisfying the Bengalis it intensified their
separatism since they felt that the west wing had politically suppressed
them since 1958. Thus came the rise of anti-West Wing sentiment in the
East Wing.
During the course of 1968, the political pressure exerted by Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto had weakened the President Ayub Khan, who had earlier sacked
Bhutto after disagreeing with President Ayub's decision to implement
on Tashkent Agreement, facilitated by the Soviet Union to end
the hostilities with India.[23] To ease the situation, President Ayub had
tried reaching out to terms with the major parties, the Pakistan Peoples
Party (PPP) and the Awami League (AL), but remained unsuccessful.[23] In
poor health, President Ayub abrogated his own constitution and suddenly
resigned from the presidency.[24]
On 24 March 1969, President Ayub directed a letter to General Yahya
Khan, inviting him to deal with the situation, as it was "beyond the
capacity of (civil) government to deal with the... Complex situation." [25] On
26 March 1969, General Yahya appeared in national television and
announced to enforce martial law in all over the country. The 1962
Constitution was abrogated, the parliament dissolved, and President
Ayub's civilian officials dismissed.[25] In his first nationwide address, Yahya
maintained: "I will not tolerate disorder. Let everyone remain at his
post."[26]

The United States had been a major sponsor of President Yahya's military
government. American journalist Gary J. Bassnotes in The Blood Telegram:
Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide, "President Nixon liked very
few people, but he did like General Yahya Khan."[38] Personal initiatives of
President Yahya had helped to establish the communication channel
between the United States and China, which would be used to set up
the Nixon's trip in 1972.[39]
Since 1960, Pakistan was perceived in the United States as an integral
bulwark against global Communism in the Cold War. The United States
cautiously supported Pakistan during 1971 although Congress kept in
place an arms embargo.[40] In 1970, India with a heavily socialist
economy entered in a formal alliance with the Soviet Union in August
1971.
Nixon relayed several written and oral messages to President Yahya,
strongly urging him to restrain the use of Pakistan forces. [41] His objective
was to prevent a war and safeguard Pakistan's interests, though he feared
an Indian invasion of Pakistan that would lead to Indian domination of the
subcontinent and strengthen the position of the Soviet Union. [42] Similarly,
President Yahya feared that an independent Bangladesh could lead to the
disintegration of Pakistan. Indian military supportfor Bengali guerrillas led
to war between India and Pakistan.[43]
In 1971, Richard Nixon met Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and did
not believe her assertion that she would not invade Pakistan; Nixon did
not trust her and even once referred to her as an "old witch". Witness
accounts presented by Kissinger pointed out that Nixon made specific
proposals to Prime Minister Gandhi on a solution for the crisis, some of
which she heard for the first time, including a mutual withdrawal of troops
from the Indo-East Pakistan borders. Nixon also expressed a wish to fix a
time limit with Yahya for political accommodation in East Pakistan. Nixon
asserted that India could count on US endeavors to ease the crisis within a
short time. But, both Kissinger and Gandhi's aide Jayakar maintained,
Gandhi did not respond to these proposals. Kissinger noted that she
"listened to what was, in fact, one of Nixon's better presentations with
aloof indifference" but "took up none of the points." Jayakar pointed out
that Gandhi listened to Nixon "without a single comment, creating an
impregnable space so that no real contact was possible." She also
refrained from assuring that India would follow Pakistan's suit if it
withdrew from India's borders. As a result, the main agenda was "dropped
altogether."
On 3 December, Yahya preemptively attacked the Indian Air Force and
Gandhi retaliated, pushing into East Pakistan.[47]Nixon issued a statement
blaming Pakistan for starting the conflict and blaming India for escalating
it[47] because he favored a cease-fire.[48] The United States was secretly
encouraging the shipment of military equipment from Iran, Turkey, and
Jordan to Pakistan, reimbursing those countries[49] despite Congressional
objections.[50] The US used the threat of an aid cut-off to force Pakistan to
back down, while its continued military aid to Islamabad prevented India
from launching incursions deeper into the country. Pakistan forces in East
Pakistan surrendered on 16 December 1971, leading to the creation of the
independent state of Bangladesh.[51]
Fall from power:
When the news of surrender of West Pakistan reached through
the national television, the spontaneous and overwhelming public anger
over Pakistan's defeat by Bangladeshi rebels and the Indian Army,
followed by the division of Pakistan into two parts boiled into street
demonstrations throughout Pakistan. Rumors of an impending coup
d'état by junior military officers against President Yahya swept the
country. Yahya became the highest-ranking casualty of the war: to
forestall further unrest, on 20 December 1971 he handed over
the presidency and government to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto— the ambitious
leader of Pakistan's powerful and popular (at that time) People's Party.
Within hours of Yahya stepping down, President Bhutto reversed JAG's
verdict against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and instead released him to see
him off to London. President Bhutto also signed orders for Yahya's house
confinement, the man who imprisoned Mujib in the first place. Both
actions produced headlines around the world.