Salaam for how long?
PAKISTAN KULDIP NAYAR
'Salaam' is a very expressive word used in Muslim countries to say welcome or good- bye. General (later Field-Marsh:41) Ayub Khan used it when he took over the government in Pakistan ten years ago, and again when he bowed out the other day. With the same word `Salaam'—meaning 'Peace be with you'— General Yahya Khan's martial law regime has begun in far-from-peaceful Pakistan. And just as General Ayub Khan said at the time of seizing political power in October 1958 that 'History would never have forgiven us if the present chaotic conditions were allowed to go any further,' General Yahya Khan, who has now followed Ayub's examplt and had himself proclaimed President, said in his first broadcast to the nation as Martial Law Administrator: 'We have had enough of administrative laxity and chaos. I shall see to it that this is not re- peated in any form or manner.' For the condi- tions under which the two men took over power were the same. The machinery of law and order had broken down before violent demon- strators.
Here the similarity ends. Ayub Khan had banned all political parties; Yahya Khan has not. Ayub had no faith in democracy, because he thought the illiterate electorate had to be guided to choose what was good for them; Yahya has promised to pave the way for the transfer of power to people's representatives elected freely and impartially on the basis- of adult franchise.
The pledge not to treat the normal aspira- tions of the people lightly is the strength of the new regime. It is true that during the decade he stayed in power General Ayub in- creased national production by 55 per cent, opened new factories, brought millions of acres under irrigation, and, above all, gave' the security and stability required for pro- gress. But he also treated public opinion with contempt. And this was responsible for his undoing. When he saw persons like Mr Z. A. Bhutto, former foreign minister, and Mr" Mujibur Rehman, an East Pakistani leader, asserting rights on behalf of the restive people, he interned them. Later he was forced to re- lease them, but that only proved that a de- termined populace could make even an uncom- promising ruler yield.
This is what General Yahya Khan has to reckon with. People will give him time to re- store normal conditions and will even put up with censorship, as they did with General Ayub Khan, but they will not allow the mili- tary regime to perpetuate itself. Now that they have defied curfews and police bullets in their thousands and have learned what 'the people' can do, they will not go back to one- man rule. They want to rule themselves. The speed with which General Yahya .Khan mana- ges to restore a democratic way of life will determine the course of events in Pakistan.
His job, however, is not easy. Most benefits of Pakistan's prosperity have gone to a small coterie of twenty families, and prominent among the beneficiaries is General Ayub Khan's son, Mr Gauhar Ayub. Worse still is , the disparity between West Pakistan and East Pakistan, 1,000 miles away. Most industries are in West Pakistan; most of Pakistan's for- eign exchange earnings and aid are spent in this province, as also 90 per cent of the de- fence budget. In the process only 10 per cent has been left for East Pakistan, which produces a major share of the country's raw materials for exports and industry.
This neglect has been gnawing at the hearts of the East Pakistanis, and now they want a dominant say in the affairs of Pakistan. Slogans like 'Down with twenty years of Punjabi domination' and 'Bengal or Punjah7 have come to mean something to them. At the round table conference which President Ayub convened to discuss the fixture pattern of Pakistan's constitution, Mr Mujibur Reh- man demanded 60 per cent of the seats in the central legislature and even the transfer of the capital from Rawalpindi to Dacca. This was naturally not to the liking of West Pakistani leaders, who saw power slipping from their hands and who ended their part of the agita- tion as soon as they realised what the East Pakistan leaders were after.
But this made the East Pakistan population only more disillusioned and bitter. They be- came convinced that what West Pakistan was wanting was continuation of its dominance, not a democratic_ administration. Therefore, after the round table conference, even what semblance of law and order remained, dis- appeared in East Pakistan. The province was caught in a maelstrom of violence, rapine and plunder. The mob's anger was directed against the protectors of law and order, the police, and his 'basic democrats' who formi:d the electoral college for the indirect election of the president. Many were imprisoned and exe- cuted by 'people's courts.' The pro-Peking segment, Krishak Samithi, led by Maulana Bhashani, an eighty-four year old leader in East Pakistan, added fuel to the fire. The Bhashani men's purpose—as it is the purpose of Mao's followers everywhere—was to organise an armed insurrection. With some arms imported from China they defied the authorities. The import of arms was confirmed by General Ayub Khan, who reportedly said at the round table conference that arms had come to East Pakistan and that they were not from India. (New Delhi has also received the same report and has a nagging fear that autonomy could lead to a demand for unity of the two Bengals 'independent of India or Pakistan.') General Yahya's problem is how to end mob rule in East Bengal and bring the people back to the path of discipline and order. Their faith in West Pakistan has been shattered, and they will never agree to anything less than proportionate representation in a future political system. And once there is a question of representation for East Bengal the basis of population, West Pakistan, a forced conglomeration of Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and North-West Frontier Pro- vince, may break up. The old proposal for a sub-federation of four states may be revived.
No doubt the immediate result of martial law will be peace. Factories and schools have reopened, and normal life is fast returning. But the people have tasted blood. They know from their experience that an authoritarian rule wears out ultimately. And as General Ayub Khan said in his political autobiography, Friends not Masters, 'whenever terrorism, particularly political terrorism, starts in a country you can never eradicate it from the bones of the people., It stays there.' This will be the biggest challenge to General Yahya Khan.
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