Political History of Pakistan

Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan(1st Prime Minister) 1947-1951

After independence, Khan was appointed as the first Prime Minister of Pakistan by the founding
fathers of Pakistan. Quaid Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah took oath from Liaqat Ali Khan. [24]
[better source needed]
The country was born during the initial beginning of the extensive
competition between the two world superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union. Khan
faced with mounted challenges and difficulties while trying to administer the country. Khan and
the Muslim League faced dual competitions with socialists in West-Pakistan and, the
communists in East Pakistan.

Criticism on Liaquat Ali khan : The Daily Times, , held Liaquat Ali Khan responsible
for mixing religion and politics, pointing out that "Liaquat Ali Khan had no constituency in the
country, his hometown was left behind in India. Bengalis were a majority in the newly created
state of Pakistan and this was a painful reality for him".

Economic and Education Policy:

Prime Minister Ali Khan took initiatives to develop educational infrastructure, science and
technology in the country, with the intention of carrying the vision of successful development of
science and technology to aid the essential foreign policy of Pakistan. Khan asked Ziauddin
Ahmed to draft the national educational policy, which was submitted to his office in November
1947, and a road map to establishing education in the country was quickly adopted by Khan's
government. Khan's government authorised the establishment of the Sindh University. Under
his government, science infrastructure was slowly built but he continued inviting Muslim
scientists and engineers from India to Pakistan, believing it essential for Pakistan's future
progress. In 1947, Khan and his Finance minister Malick Ghulam proposed the idea of Five-
Year Plans, by putting the country's economic system on investment and capitalism grounds.
Focusing on an initial planned economic system under the directives of private sector and
consortium industries in 1948, economic planning began to take place during his time in office,
but soon collapsed partly because of unsystematic and inadequate staffing. Khan's economic
policies were soon heavily dependent on United States aid to the country. In spite of planning
an independent economic policy, Khan's economic policies focused on the United States' aid
programme, on the other hand, Nehru focused on socialism and went on to be a part of Non
Aligned Movement. An important event during his premiership was the establishment of
a National Bank in November 1949, and the installation of a paper currency mill in Karachi.

Constitutional Work

During his early days in office, Khan first adopted the Government of India Act 1935 to
administer the country, although his lawmakers and legislators continued to work on a different
document of governance. Finally in 1949 Prime Minister Khan intensified his vision to establish
an Islamic-based system in the country, presenting the Objectives Resolution—a prelude to
future constitutions, in the Constituent Assembly. The house passed it on 12 March 1949, but it
was met with criticism. On the other hand, Liquat Ali Khan described as this bill as the "Magna
Carta" of Pakistan's constitutional history. Khan called it "the most important occasion in the life
of this country, next in importance, only to the achievement of independence". Under his
leadership, a team of legislators also drafted the first report of the Basic Principle Committee
and work began on the second report.

War with India

After appointing a new government, Pakistan entered a war with India over Kashmir. he British
commander of the Pakistan Army General Sir Frank Walter Messervy refused to attack the
Indian army units. When General Douglas Gracey was appointed the commander in chief of the
Pakistan Army, Liaquat Ali Khan ordered the independent units of the Pakistan Army to
intervene in the conflict. On Khan's personal accounts and views, the prime minister preferred a
"harder diplomatic" and "less military stance".The prime minister sought a dialogue with his
counterpart, and agreed to resolve the dispute of Kashmir in a peaceful manner through the
efforts of the United Nations. According to this agreement a ceasefire was effected in Kashmir
on 1 January 1949. It was decided that a free and impartial plebiscite would be held under the
supervision of the UN. The prime minister's diplomatic stance was met with hostility by
the Pakistan Armed Forces and the socialists and communists, notably the mid-higher level
command who would later sponsor an alleged coup led by the communists and socialists
against his government.

Soviet Union and United States

In 1949, the Soviet Union's leader, Joseph Stalin, sent an invitation to Ali Khan to visit the
country, followed by a U.S. invitation after they learned of the Soviet move. In May 1950, Khan
paid a state visit to the United States after being persuaded to snap ties with the Soviet Union,
and set the course of Pakistan's foreign policy toward closer ties with the West, despite it being
the Soviet Union who sent its invitation of Khan to visit the country first. Khan asked the U.S. for
economic and moral support to enable it to stand on its feet. Khan began to develop tighter
relations with the Soviet Union, China, Poland, and Iran. In 1950, Ali Khan established relations
with China by sending his ambassador, making Pakistan to become first Muslim country to
establish relations with China, a move which further dismayed the United States.

Struggle for control

Ali Khan's ability to run the country was put in doubt and great questions were raised by
the communists and socialists active in the country. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan did not take
over the office of Governor-General, instead appointing Khawaja Nazimuddin, a Bengali
statesman from East-Pakistan. Ali Khan faced the problem of religious minorities during late
1949 and early 1950, and observers feared that India and Pakistan were about to fight their
second war in the first three years of their independence. Differences and problems also leveled
up with the Pakistan Armed Forces, and a local and native section of Pakistan Army was
completely hostile towards Ali Khan's diplomatic approach with India. Another difference came
when Khan also intensified policies to make the country a parliamentary democracy and federal
republic. During his tenure, Khan supervised the promulgation of the October Objectives in 1949
which passed by the Constituent Assembly. The document was aimed as an Islamic,
democratic and federal constitution and government. Disagreement existed about the approach
and methods to realise these aims. The third major difference was itself in the Muslim League;
the party had weak political structure with no public base ground or support. Its activities reveled
in high factionalism, low commitment to resolve public problems, corruption and incompetency
of planning social and economics programmes. In East Pakistan, Ali Khan's lack of attention for
the development of the Bengali section of the state brought about a bad juncture for the prime
minister and his party, where its ideology was vague. In terms of its political base, it was both
weak and narrow, and could not compete in West-Pakistan as well as in East-Pakistan where
traditional families were endowed with enormous political power. In West Pakistan, the Muslim
League failed to compete against the socialists, and in East Pakistan the communists.

Khan’s Assassination

On 16 October 1951, Khan was shot twice in the chest while he was addressing a gathering of
100,000 at Company Bagh (Company Gardens), Rawalpindi. Upon his death, Khan was given
the honorific title of "Shaheed-e-Millat", or "Martyr of the Nation". He is buried at Mazar-e-
Quaid, the mausoleum built for Jinnah in Karachi.

Khawaja Nazim-ud-din (Governor General 1948-51 and prime minister 1951-53)

Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin KCIE (19 July 1894 – 22 October 1964) was a Pakistani politician
and statesman who served as the second governor-general of Pakistan from 1948 to 1951 and
later as the second prime minister of Pakistan from 1951 to 1953. He was one of the
leading founding fathers of Pakistan and the first Bengali to have governed Pakistan. His term
was marked by constant power struggles with his own successor as Governor-General, Ghulam
Muhammad, as law and order deteriorated amid the rise of the Bengali language movement and
protests in his native Dhaka in 1952, and religious riots in Lahore a year later. The latter crisis
saw the first instance of martial law, limited to the city, and led to Ghulam Muhammad
dismissing Nazimuddin on 17 April 1953. Nazimuddin's ministry was the first federal government
to be dismissed in Pakistan's history. fter the death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Nazimuddin was
appointed acting governor-general. at the urging of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, on 14
September 1948. His oath of office was supervised by Chief Justice Sir Abdul Rashid of the
Federal Court of Pakistan, with Liaquat Ali Khan in attendance.

As governor-general, Nazimuddin set a precedent of neutrality and non-interference in the

government, and provided his political support to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan's government,
which was seen as essential to the working of the responsible government at that time.

In 1949, Governor-General Nazimuddin established the parliamentary committee, the Basic

Principles Committee, on the advice of Prime Minister Ali Khan to underlying basic principles
that would lay foundation of Constitution of Pakistan.

After the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan in 1951, the Muslim League leaders asked Governor-
General Nazimuddin to take over the business of the government as a prime minister as well as
the party's presidency as there was no other person found suitable for the post. He appointed
Finance Minister Sir Malik Ghulam to the Governor-General's post. In January 1952, Prime
Minister Nazimuddin publicly announced in Dacca's meeting that: Jinnah had been right: for the
sake of Pakistan's national unity, Urdu must be the official language of Pakistan–East and West.
The agitations and violence spread through the successful Bengali language movement and
the riots in Lahore proved the inability of Nazimuddin's government as he was widely seen as
weak in running the government administration.

In a view of attempting to improve the economy and internal security, Malik Ghulam asked
Prime Minister Nazimuddin to step down in the wider interest of the country. Nazimuddin
refused to oblige and Malik Ghulam used reserve powers granted in the Government of India
Act 1935, dismissed Nazimuddin.

Nazimuddin then requested the Federal Court of Pakistan's intervention against this action but
the Chief Justice, Muh'd Munir did not rule on the legality of the dismissal, but instead
forced new elections to be held in 1954. Malik Ghulam appointed another Bengali
politician, Muhammad Ali Bogra who was then tenuring as the Pakistan ambassador to the
United States, as the new prime minister until the new elections to be held in 1954.

Ghulam Muhammad (Governor General 1951-53)

Sir Malik Ghulam Muhammad[a] (20 April 1895 – 29 August 1956) was a Pakistani politician
and economist who served as the third governor-general of Pakistan from 1951 to 1955. After
the Independence of Pakistan in 1947, he joined the Liaquat administration as the country's
first Finance Minister where he helped draft the first five-year plans to alleviate the national
economy. In 1953, Muhammad represented Pakistan at the Coronation of Elizabeth
II in Westminster Abbey . He used the reserve powers awarded by the Government of India Act
1935 against Prime Minister Nazimuddin, effectively dismissing his administration only to be
replaced with diplomat M. A. Bogra. In 1954, the Constituent Assembly made legislative
attempts to try changing the 1935 act to establish checks and balances on the Governor-
General's powers. In response, Muhammad dismissed the Constituent Assembly, an action that
was challenged in the Sindh High Court by Maulvi Tamizuddin, the Speaker of the Assembly.
The Sindh High Court's Chief Justice Sir George Constantine ruled the Governor-General's
decision unlawful, but the ruling was overturned by the Federal Court of Pakistan, led by Chief
Justice Muhammad Munir, in a split decision. Historians consider this action the beginning of
viceregal politics in Pakistan, in which the military and civil bureaucracy, not elected officials,
would gain increasing influence over the country's policymaking. During this time, Muhammad's
health began to deteriorate, and paralysis spread through his whole body, forcing him to take a
leave of absence in 1955 to seek treatment in the United Kingdom. In his capacity, he appointed
Interior Minister Iskandar Ali Mirza as acting Governor-General, but Mirza dismissed him from
his post in order to take his place, supported by the Constituent Assembly's legislators.

On 29 August 1956, Malik Ghulam Muhammad died and was buried in Karachi.

Muhammad Ali Bogra (prime Minister)