Pakistani–Indian war. It had achieved nothing but
casualties for both sides, but the Soviet Union’s
posture in Asia as a peacemaker was enhanced.
In one respect, Pakistan’s development appeared
to contrast favourably with India’s: the growth of
its economy in the Ayub Khan military era.
Political stability, even of the repressive kind, is
seen by investors as a positive factor. In both agri-
culture and industry Pakistan’s wealth and pro-
duction grew rapidly in the 1960s. The magic
formula was to encourage a capitalist, market-
oriented economy and to loosen the bureaucratic
regulations imposed in the 1950s. Ayub Khan was
following with seeming success the development
prescriptions of theoretical economists. One of
the consequences they anticipated during the
phase of rapid development in what was a Third
World country was the unrestrained urge for
profits among the owners of the few existing
large-scale enterprises. The resulting inequalities
of wealth were truly staggering. Just twenty-two
families owned the greater part of industry,
banking and insurance – or, to be more precise,
two-thirds of industry, four-fifths of banking and
almost the whole of insurance. Their wealth was
fabulous. The senior military and civil service
prospered as well, together with a small middle
class. In the countryside agriculture benefited
from what was called the ‘green revolution’, the
creation of new plant breeds bearing much
heavier crops. This necessitated shorter stems that
would not bend over when carrying more grain.
Agricultural research was given high priority in
India and Pakistan. A rapidly growing population
needed to be fed. The uneven rainfall, the mon-
soon period followed by drought for nine months
of the year, was the main problem on the Indian
subcontinent. The seeds that produced the new
‘green revolution’ plants of rice, wheat, maize,
sorghum and millet seeds were imported from the
Philippines, Taiwan and Mexico. Farmers had to
be taught better techniques of husbandry and the
correct use of fertilisers. In India, the government,
with the assistance of the Ford Foundation, pro-
moted an all-round programme. In Pakistan, edu-
cation and research were undertaken by the
universities. Mexico also assisted by training many
agricultural scientists. In Pakistan it was the farm-
ers of the larger farms in the Punjab who benefited
rather than the peasants and small farmers and
those in the east, in Bengal.
The price paid for an economic development
in Pakistan that made the well-to-do richer and
the poor poorer, despite the rapid growth as mea-
sured nationally, was a heavy one. The low living
standards of industrial workers and of peasants fell
even further. Development was also lopsided
regionally – West Pakistan did much better than
the eastern half of the country. The tensions were
heightened until there was an explosion that
ended in civil war and swept the military rulers
from power, if only for a time.
In 1969 there were student demonstrations,
labour strikes and massive unrest coupled with
demands for the restoration of parliamentary rule.
Ayub Khan promised to hold elections; he had no
desire to rule the country any longer under some
form of military repression, which was the only
alternative. Unlike Zia, he was no ruthless dicta-
tor. He handed over power to another general,
Yahya Khan, who also honestly attempted to pre-
side over a transition to civilian rule with the army
in the background as a check on unbridled polit-
ical conflict, which might otherwise lead to chaos.
In December 1970 genuinely free elections were
held. The results and the behaviour of the politi-
cians led to civil conflict and the Pakistani–Indian
war twelve months later.
The elections split the country politically in
two, corresponding to the geographical division.
No major party gained a seat in both East and
West Pakistan. In East Pakistan the powerful
political grouping known as the Awami League,
still led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and on a plat-
form advocating wide-ranging autonomy and
only a loose federal linking with the West, carried
all before it, gaining 151 seats and losing only
two. In West Pakistan eleven parties competed,
and none reached double figures except Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan’s People’s Party with 81
seats. Bhutto was a charismatic, populist leader
from a wealthy landowning family in the province
of Sind. His power base in that province was a
somewhat opportunistic alignment of opposition
to the capitalist–military rule: socialists in Sind
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FREEDOM AND CONFLICT IN THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT 633
