and the Punjab, resentful urban workers, liberal
reformers and feudal landlords in Sind looking for
more favourable regional treatment supported the
PPP and turned it into a mass party.
Sections of the army, discontented with the
outcome of the brief Pakistani–Indian war in
1965, also backed Bhutto. The elections over, the
National Assembly should have met shortly after.
It did not. The Awami League would have been
the governing group in it and the president,
General Yahya Khan, first wanted an assurance
that the League’s policy would not in effect create
a two-nation state. In taking this step, he was rein-
forced by the strident West Pakistani nationalism
of Bhutto. Talks between Mujibur, Yahya and
Bhutto failed, and Mujibur was arrested. Bhutto
and elements in the army sought by violent threats
to prevent the convening of the National
Assembly; shortly before it was due to meet in
March 1971, Yahya postponed it indefinitely.
The scene was now set for the tragic events
that followed: the attempt by the army to subdue
East Pakistan by force. Bengal, suffering another
natural catastrophe in cyclones and floods, had
felt neglected by the lack of effective Western
relief. Now its right to democratic representation
was being denied by West Pakistan. The result of
all these cumulative failures was war in East
Pakistan. Ten million Hindu refugees flooded
across the frontier into India, prompting the
Indian army to intervene in East Pakistan, and
also to attack in Kashmir. It was all over in two
weeks. The Pakistani army in the East became
prisoners of war. India and Pakistan concluded a
peace settlement at Simla in December 1971 and
the independent state of Bangladesh was born.
Independence did not much help the
Bangladeshi people. Theirs is one of the poorest
countries in the world, its population exposed to
periodic cataclysms of cyclone and floods. Here,
too, the army for most of its history has been the
controlling element in repressive government. In
1975 Mujibur was assassinated in an army coup.
Powerless parliamentary assemblies and army
strongmen have ruled this country, beset by huge
economic problems and a rapidly growing popu-
lation. General Ershad seized power in 1982,
retaining it until overthrown by a wave of popular
protest in 1990 which ended years of corruption,
only to start a new period of turmoil. Meanwhile,
in little more than a decade, the population had
grown from 84.6 million to over 110 million.
In West Pakistan the lost war decided the army
to take a back seat, and Yahya transferred power to
Bhutto and his PPP. Would Bhutto now usher in
the long-delayed social and political reforms,
heralding a new era of parliamentary democratic
government? In this respect, the Bhutto years
from 1972 to 1977, that is until his own violent
overthrow by another army coup, were a disap-
pointment. The 1973 constitution was indeed
intended to transform Pakistan into a parliamen-
tary democracy; but only a year later it was
amended. Bhutto’s political corruption under-
mined the development of democratic political
parties, as he likewise violently repressed political
opponents. Civil liberties were severely limited
and in the provinces autonomy was crushed. His
socialist zeal soon flagged after some early and
limited measures of nationalisation. Funds for the
promised free education and for the provision of
health care for the poor failed to materialise, leav-
ing unfilled the huge gap in the basic social ser-
vices. Economic growth slowed. But there were
some reforms which particularly benefited the fac-
tory workers and urban poor – a revision of labour
laws and the raising of wages. Bhutto conse-
quently continued to enjoy, even after his fall in
1977, the mass support of millions of Pakistanis,
who remembered him for caring for the poor.
Crucial to his political survival were Bhutto’s
relations with the army. He sought to appease the
military by increasing defence expenditure. He
appointed as his loyal army chief of staff a young
officer who had foiled an army coup in 1972.
Bhutto’s fatal error was to choose the wrong man- the ambitious, clever and utterly ruthless Zia-
ul-Haq. Zia waited for Bhutto to run into polit-
ical crisis. This occurred after the elections of
March 1977, which Bhutto had so blatantly
rigged that the opposition parties would not
accept the results. Fearing military intervention to
quell the ensuing turmoil, Bhutto agreed to the
holding of new elections, but before they could
be held, on 5 July 1977, Zia staged his military
coup. He claimed that Pakistan was on the verge