History of Pakistan

Personalities Muhammad bin Qasim Muhammad Ghuri Razia Sultana Babur Akbar Tipu Sultan Bahadur Shah Zafar Sir Syed Ahmad Khan Syed Ameer Ali Maulana Shaukat Ali Maulana Muhammad Ali Jouhar Allama Iqbal Choudhary Rahmat Ali A. K. Fazl-ul-Haq Muhammad Ali Jinnah Liaquat Ali Khan Khawaja Nazimuddin Muhammad Ali Bogra Iskander Mirza H. S. Suhrawardy Muhammad Ayub Khan Fatima Jinnah Yahya Khan Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Gen. M. Zia-ul-Haq Muhammad Khan Junejo Benazir Bhutto Ghulam Ishaq Khan Mian M. Nawaz Sharif Sardar Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari Muhammad Rafiq Tarar Gen. Pervez Musharraf Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali Ch. Shujaat Hussain Shaukat Aziz Women's Role in Pakistan Movement WOMEN played a major role in the Pakistan Movement. This was of great historical significance, for the Muslim women of the subcontinent had never participated in such great numbers in a political movement. It was a befitting culmination of the reformist movements of the late nineteenth century for the emancipation and education of Muslim women. The Quaid can be seen as source of inspiration for their emergence as players on the political scene. The Khilafat Movement of the 1920s had been the first instance when Muslim women had made their presence felt. With Maulanas Shaukat Ali and Mohammed Ali in jail, their mother, Bi Amman, had taken up the cudgels against British imperialism. Her daughter-in-law assisted her. It took an old lady to strike the first blow at seclusion. She addressed meetings from behind the purdah of a sheet, and travelled to various parts of India to whip up support. Women came to hear her, and they were motivated to meet in various mohallas to raise funds. It was an old custom in the subcontinent that women sold their jewellery when the family was faced with a financial crisis. When the Khilafat Movement demanded contributions from its supporters, the women came forward and gave up their jewellery, that being their only worldly possession. This would have been the first time that they made such a gesture for a political cause. However all this was short-lived and so with the demise of the Khilafat Movement women reverted to the strict seclusion of their homes and their domestic world. The Quaid had seen the increasing participation of women in the Congress, his parent party. He realized the need to have Muslim women's participation in the Muslim League, which he had begun to re-organize and bring to life. It was at Lucknow in 1937 that he called for the creation of a Women's Wing of the Muslim League, but it remained dormant till the Patna Session of the Muslim League in 1938. His instructions were that there should be a recruitment drive through each and every district of India, and women should be made two-anna members of the Muslim League. Within two years of the Patna session political consciousness had begun to spread to all groups and classes of Muslim women, and on March 23, 1940, the women's section of All-India Muslim League held its annual session at the Islamia College for Girls, Lahore. By now this college had begun to be at the centre of the women's movement for Pakistan. Its Principal, Fatima Begum, played an instrumental role in bringing this about. Begum Hafeezuddin gave the keynote address in which she called upon the Muslims of the subcontinent to unite under the flag of the Muslim League. Two resolutions were passed at this session. The first pertaining to the Muslim League called for the women to work amongst their friends and acquaintances and rally them to the Muslim League, and help the Party organize sub-committees in towns and rural areas. The second resolution called on Muslim men to help Muslim women get the legal rights which were rightfully theirs under the Shariat, but which they had been denied. Baji Rashida Latif, who was also a member of the Legislative Assembly, declared in her speech that "capitalists" had deprived Muslim women of their rights. She must have been referring to the inheritance of property which continued to be denied to Muslim women in Punjab, for the big landlords did not want their property divided and consequently had opposed inheritance by Muslim women. The mobilization of girls and women was continued with full force. In November, 1942, the Quaid was invited by the Punjab Girl Students Federation to come to the Jinnah Islamia Girls College and address the girls. In his speech he said: "I am glad to see that not only Muslim men but Muslim women and children also have understood the Pakistan scheme. No nation can make any progress without the co-operation of its women. If Muslim women support their men, as they did in the day of the Prophet of Islam, we should soon realize our goal... no nation is capable of remaining a strong nation, unless and until its men and women struggle together for the achievement of its goals". The Quaid exhorted the young students to join the Muslim League and recounted how at Patna he had formed a women's section of the Party, in order to increase the involvement of the Muslim women. The women's section of the Muslim League organized mushairas and get-togethers. The movement for Pakistan had spread to girls' schools and colleges and got increasingly tied up with Muslim women's demands for the implementation of Shariat, as that would increase their rights under the law. By 1945 the Muslim League movement had become so widespread amongst women that they were touring the major towns and cities and trying to organize primary branches of the Muslim League. The main purpose of these tours was to get them to attend the coming session of the All-India Muslims League in Lahore on March 23, 1945. As the Muslim League geared up for the elections of 1946, women's' divisional and district committees were organized and conveners appointed. A contingent of women arrived in Lahore from Aligarh to assist in touring the districts. In the last week before polling, women became so active that they held meetings in Simla, Amritsar, Gujranwala and Lahore. Meetings were held in Lahore to assign women to various polling stations. The first women's branch of the Muslim League in the Frontier was opened in 1939. In October 1945 Lady Abdullah Haroon, the President of the All-India Women's Muslim League, led a delegation of Muslim women to the Frontier province. When a meeting was organized under the auspices of the Zenana Muslim League, as many as thousand women attended it. The audience contributed Rs 80,000 to the Muslim League fund. In the elections of 1945-46 it was very active and women Leaguers from other parts of the region, and especially from Lahore, toured the province to mobilize support amongst the women of the Frontier province. During the Civil Disobedience Movement, women's demonstrations in Peshawar became frequent. Other towns affected in a similar manner were Mardan, Kohat and Abbotabad. Women Leaguers' militancy in the Frontier increased after the fall of the Unionist ministry in the Punjab. They agitated outside the government offices, hoisted the flag on the Secretariat and took out processions. The presence of a large number of women workers from Punjab and other areas of the country helped. The Muslim League won all the Muslim seats to the Central Assembly. They celebrated Victory Day on January 11, 1946. Students from Aligarh to Lahore had shown great zeal, and the girls had played a major role. On January 18 the Quaid addressed the Muslim Students Federation in Lahore, and when he went to address the women's wing of the Muslim League he was escorted by two girls on either side of him with swords drawn. When, despite the Muslim League victory, the British Governor of Punjab asked the Congress and the Unionist Party to form a coalition government, it caused a furore amongst the members and supporters of the Muslim League. Meetings were held, and there was a demonstration of five hundred men and women on Queen's Road. The Quaid was in the tradition of a whole host of Muslim intellectuals and thinkers before him who had been calling for the education and emancipation of Muslim women. However, he was the first to actively promote their participation in politics and the Muslim League. It is no accident of history that he took his sister everywhere with him. He set the trend and his followers emulated. It is not surprising that Liaquat Ali Khan had Rana Liaquat by his side. The message was loud and clear: women should come out of their seclusion and be equal partners in the social and political life of the country. He is quoted as having declared that the Muslim nation could not progress or free itself unless women were its equal partners. The Pakistan Movement is an important watershed in the social history of Muslim women. While there is a long line of writers who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were advocating that Muslim women be educated, there was none who had the audacity to suggest that they emerge from the physical seclusion of their homes. When the Pakistan fever caught the hearts and minds of the Muslims, it seemed but natural that the women should be drawn into it too. While the Quaid encouraged this through every policy decision of his, the conservative and the orthodox sections of society do not seem to have provided any major opposition to this new phenomenon. Hence there was no suffragette movement as such. Women acquired voting rights in the process of waging a political struggle for Pakistan. There is no evidence of a war between the genders because both were caught in a common struggle, and were supportive of each other. There is a whole galaxy of confident, intelligent, articulate and committed women who emerged from this Movement. They were poised at this advantageous situation when Pakistan was born.

British Rule and Muslim League  The British ruled the Indian subcontinent for nearly 200 years-from 1756 to 1947. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British government abolished the powers of the British East India Company, which had ruled the sub-continent on behalf of the British Crown, and took  on  direct  powers of governance. Political reforms   were   initiated,    allowing the formation  of  political parties. The Indian National Congress, representing the overwhelming majority of Hindus, was created in 1885. The Muslim League was formed in 1906 to  represent  and  protect the  position of the  Muslim  minority.  When  the  British  introduced constitutional  reforms  in 1909,  the  Muslims  demanded  and  acquired  separate  electoral rolls. This guaranteed Muslims representation in the provincial l as well as  national  legislatures until the dawn of independence in 1947.The idea of a separate Muslim state in south Asia was raised in 1930 by the poet and philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal.  He suggested that the north-western provinces of British India and the native state of Jammu and Kashmir should be joined into such a state. The name "Pakistan", which came to be used to describe this grouping, is thought to have originated as a compound abbreviation made up of letters of the names of the provinces involved, as follows: Punjab, Afghania (North West Frontier Province), Kashmir, Indus-Sindh, and Balochistan. An alternative explanation says the name means "Land of the Pure". By the end of the 1930s, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League and considered the founding father of Pakistan, had also decided that the only way to preserve Indian Muslims from Hindu domination was to establish a separate Muslim state. Creation of Pakistan  In 1940 the Muslim League formally endorsed the partitioning  of  British  India  and  the  creation of Pakistan  as  a  separate  Muslim  state.  During pre-independence  talks  in 1946,  therefore,  the British  government  found  that  the  stand of the Muslim  League on  separation  and  that  of  the Congress  on  the territorial  unity  of  India were irreconcilable.   The  British   then   decided  on partition  and  on  August 15,  1947,   transferred power dividedly to India and Pakistan. The latter, however, came into existence in two parts: West Pakistan, as Pakistan stands today, and East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh. The two were separated by 1,600 km (1,000 mi) of Indian territory. Problems of Partition  The division of the subcontinent caused tremendous dislocations of populations. Some 6 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan into India, and about 8 million Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan. The demographic shift was accompanied by considerable inter-ethnic    violence,   including   massacres,   that  reinforced bitterness  between  the two countries. This bitterness was further intensified by  disputes  over  the  accession  of  the  former  native states of  India  to  either  country. Nearly  all  of  these 562 widely scattered polities had joined either India or Pakistan; the princes of Hyderabad, Junagadh, and Kashmir, however, had chosen to join neither country. On August 15, 1947, these three states became technically independent, but when the Muslim ruler of Junagadh, with its predominantly Hindu population, joined Pakistan a month later, India annexed his territory. Hyderabad's Muslim prince, ruling over a mostly Hindu population, tried to postpone any decision indefinitely, but in September 1948 India also settled that issue by pre-emptive annexation. The Hindu ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, whose subjects were 85 per cent Muslim, decided to join India. Pakistan, however, questioned his right to do so, and a war broke out between India and Pakistan. Although the UN subsequently resolved that a plebiscite be held under UN auspices to determine the future of Kashmir, India continued to occupy about two thirds of the state and refused to hold a plebiscite. This deadlock, which still persists, has intensified suspicion and antagonism between the two countries. Pre-Republican Era The first independent government of Pakistan was headed by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was Governor-General until his death in 1948. From 1947 to 1951 the country functioned under unstable conditions. The government endeavoured to create a new national capital to replace Karachi, organize the bureaucracy and the armed forces, resettle refugees, and contend with provincial politicians who often defied its authority. Failing to offer any programme of economic and social reform, however, it did not capture the popular imagination. In his foreign policy Liaquat established friendly relations with the United States, when he visited President Harry S. Truman in 1950. Liaquat's United States visit injected bitterness into Pakistan's  relations with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) because Liaquat had previously accepted an invitation from Moscow that never materialized in a visit. The United States gave no substantial aid to Pakistan until threeyears later, but the USSR, Pakistan's close  neighbour, had been alienated. After Liaquat was assassinated in 1951, Khwaja Nazimuddin, an East Pakistani who had been Governor-General since Jinnah's death, became Prime Minister. Unable to prevent the erosion of the Muslim League's popularity in East Pakistan, however, he was forced to yield to another East Pakistani, Muhammad Ali Bogra, in 1953. When the Muslim League was routed in East Pakistani elections in 1954, the Governor-General dissolved the constituent assembly as no longer representative. The new assembly that met in 1955 was no longer dominated by the Muslim League. Muhammad Ali Bogra was then replaced by Chaudhuri Muhammad Ali, a West Pakistani. At the same time, Iskander Mirza became the Governor-General of the country.The new constituent assembly enacted a bill, which became effective in October 1955, integrating the four West Pakistani provinces into one political and administrative unit. The assembly also produced a new constitution, which was adopted on March 2, 1956. It declared Pakistan an Islamic republic. Mirza was elected Provisional President. Cabinet Shifts The new constitution  notwithstanding,  political  instability  continued  because no stable majority party emerged in the  National  Assembly. Prime  Ministe r Ali  remained in office only until September 1956, when  he  was  succeeded  by  Huseyn  Shaheed  Suhrawardy,  leader  of  the  Awami League of East Pakistan.  His  tenure  lasted  for  slightly  more  than  a year.  When  President Mirza discovered that Suhrawardy was planning  an  alliance  between East and West Pakistani political forces by supporting the presidential aspirations  of  Firoz Khan Noon,  leader  of the  Republican  Party, he forced the prime minister to resign. The  succeeding  coalition  government, headed by Ismail Ibrahim Chundrigar, lasted only two months  before  it was  replaced by a  Republican Party Cabinet under Noon. President Mirza, however, found  that  his  influence  among  the  Republicans  was  diminishing and that the new prime minister had come to an understanding with Suhrawardy. Against such a coalition Mirza had no chance of being re-elected president. He proclaimed martial law on October 7, 1958, dismissed Noon's government, and dissolved the national assembly. The president was supported by General Muhammad Ayub Khan, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, who was named  chief martial-law administrator. Twenty days later Ayub forced the president to resign and assumed the presidency himself. Ayub Years  Ayub ruled Pakistan almost absolutely for more than ten years, and his regime made some notable achievements, although it did not eliminate the basic problems of Pakistani society. A land reforms commission appointed by Ayub distributed some 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) of land among 150,000 tenants. The reforms, however, did not erase feudal relationships in the countryside; about 6,000 landlords still retained an area three times larger than that given to the 150,000 tenants. During Ayub's regime developmental funds to East Pakistan increased more than threefold. This had a noticeable effect on the economy of the eastern part, but the disparity between the two sectors of Pakistan was not eliminated. Perhaps the most pervasive of Ayub's changes was his system of Basic Democracies. It created 80,000 basic democrats, or union councillors, who were leaders of rural or urban areas around the country. They constituted the electoral college for presidential elections and for elections to the national and provincial legislatures created under the constitution promulgated by Ayub in 1962. The Basic Democratic System had four tiers of government from the national to the local level. Each tier was assigned certain responsibilities in administering the rural and urban areas, such as maintenance of primary schools, public roads, and bridges. Ayub also promulgated an Islamic marriage and family laws ordinance in 1961, imposing restrictions on polygamy and divorce, and reinforcing the inheritance rights of women and minors. For a long time Ayub maintained cordial relations with the United States, stimulating substantial economic and military aid to Pakistan. This relationship, however, deteriorated in 1965, when another war with India over Kashmir broke out. The United States then suspended military and economic aid to both countries, thus denying Pakistan badly needed weapons. The USSR then intervened to mediate the conflict, inviting Ayub and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri of India to Toshkent. By the terms of the so-called Tashkent Agreement of January 1966, the two countries withdrew their forces to pre-war positions and restored diplomatic, economic, and trade relations. Exchange programmes were initiated, and the flow of capital goods to Pakistan increased greatly. The Tashkent Agreement and the Kashmir war, however, generated frustration among the people of Pakistan and resentment against President Ayub. Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto resigned his position and agitated against Ayub's dictatorship and the "loss" of Kashmir. In March 1969 Ayub resigned. Instead of transferring power to the speaker of the National Assembly, as the constitution dictated, he handed it over to the commander-in-chief of the army, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan. Yahya became President and declared martial law. Civil War In an attempt to make his regime more acceptable, Yahya dismissed almost 300 senior civil servants and identified 30 families that were said to control about half of Pakistan's gross national product. To curb their power Yahya in 1970 issued an ordinance against monopolies and restrictive trade practices. He also made commitments to transfer power to civilian authorities, but in the process of making this shift, his intended reforms broke down.  The greatest challenge to Pakistan's unity, however, was presented by East Pakistan, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, who insisted on a federation under which East Pakistan would be virtually independent. He envisaged a federal government that would deal with defence and foreign affairs only; even the currencies would be different, although freely convertible. His programme had great emotional appeal for East Pakistanis. In the election of December 1970 called by Yahya, Sheikh Mujib-as Mujibur Rahman was generally called-won by a landslide in East Pakistan, capturing a clear majority in the National Assembly. The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) formed by Bhutto in 1967 emerged as the largest  party in West Pakistan. Suspecting Sheikh Mujib of secessionist politics, Yahya in March 1971 postponed indefinitely the convening of the National Assembly.Mujib in return accused Yahya of collusion with Bhutto and established a virtually independent government in East Pakistan. Yahya opened negotiations with Mujib in Dhaka in mid-March, but the effort soon failed. Mujib was arrested and brought to West Pakistan to be tried for treason. Meanwhile Pakistan's army went into action against Mujib's civilian followers, who demanded freedom and independence for East Pakistan, or Bangladesh ("Bengali Nation") as it was to be called. There were a great many casualties during the ensuing military operations in East Pakistan, during which the Pakistani army attacked the poorly armed population. India claimed that nearly 10 million Bengali refugees crossed its borders, and stories of West Pakistani atrocities abounded. The Awami League leaders took refuge in Calcutta and established a government-in-exile. India finally intervened on December 3, 1971, and the Pakistani army surrendered 13 days later. On December 20 Yahya relinquished power to Bhutto, and in January 1972 the independent state of Bangladesh came into existence. When the Commonwealth of Nations admitted Bangladesh later that year, Pakistan withdrew from membership, not to return until 1989. However, the Bhutto government gave diplomatic recognition to Bangladesh in 1974. Bhutto Government  Under Bhutto's leadership a diminished Pakistan began to rearrange its national life. Bhutto nationalized basic industries, insurance companies, domestically owned banks, and schools and colleges. He also instituted modest land reforms that benefited tenants and middle-class farmers. He removed the armed forces from the process of decision-making, but to placate the generals he allocated about 6 per cent of the gross national product to defence. In 1973 the National Assembly adopted the country's fifth constitution. Bhutto became Prime Minister, and Fazal Elahi Chaudhry replaced him as President.  Although discontented, the military remained silent for some time. Bhutto's nationalization programme and land reforms further earned him the enmity of the entrepreneurial and capitalist class, while religious leaders saw in his socialism an enemy of Islam. His decisive flaw, however, was his inability to deal constructively with the opposition. His rule grew heavy-handed. In general elections in March 1977 nine opposition parties united in the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) to run against Bhutto's PPP. Losing in three of the four provinces, the PNA alleged that Bhutto had rigged the vote. It boycotted the provincial elections a few days later and organized demonstrations throughout the country that lasted for six weeks. Zia Regime  When the situation seemed to be deadlocked, the army Chief of Staff, General Muhammad Zia Ul-Haq, staged a coup on July 5, 1977, and imposed another military regime. Bhutto was tried for political murder and found guilty; he was hanged on April 4, 1979. Zia formally assumed the presidency in 1978 and established Shari'ah (Islamic law) as the law of the land. The constitution of 1973 was initially amended, then suspended in 1979, and benches were constituted at the courts to exercise Islamic judicial review.Interest-free banking was initiated, and  maximum penalties were provided for adultery, defamation, theft, and the consumption of alcohol. On March 24, 1981, Zia issued a provisional constitutional order, operative until the lifting of martial law. It envisaged the appointment of two vice-presidents and allowed political parties that had been approved by the election commission before September 30, 1979, to function. All other parties, including the PPP, now led by Bhutto's widow and by his daughter, Benazir, were dissolved. Pakistan was greatly affected by the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979; by 1984 some 3 million Afghan refugees were living along Pakistan's border with  Afghanistan, supported by the government and by international relief agencies. In September 1981 Zia accepted a six-year economic and military aid package (worth US$3.2 billion) from the United States. After a   referendum in December 1984 endorsed Zia's Islamic-law policies and the extension of his presidency until 1990, Zia permitted elections for parliament in February 1985. A civilian Cabinet took office in April, and martial law ended in December. Zia, however, was dissatisfied and, in May 1988, he dissolved the government and ordered new elections. Three months later he was killed in an aeroplane crash, and a caretaker military regime took power.

Benazir Bhutto

A civil servant, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, was appointed President, and Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister after the PPP won the general elections held in November 1988. She was the first female political leader of a modern Islamic state. In August 1990 President Ishaq Khan dismissed her government, charging misconduct, and declared a state of emergency. Bhutto and the PPP lost the October elections after she was arrested for corruption and abuse of power. The new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, head of the Islamic Democratic Alliance, continued the programme of privatizing state enterprises and encouraging foreign investment begun in the 1980s. He also promised to bring the country back to Islamic law and to ease continuing tensions with India over Kashmir. The charges against Bhutto were resolved, and she returned to lead the PPP.
In April 1993 Ishaq Khan once again used his presidential power, this time to dismiss Sharif and to dissolve parliament. However, Sharif appealed to the Constitutional Court of Pakistan, which stated that Kahn's actions were unconstitutional and reinstated Sharif as Prime Minister. Sharif and Kahn subsequently became embroiled in a power struggle that paralysed the Pakistani government. In an agreement designed to end the stalemate, Sharif and Kahn resigned together in July 1993, and elections were held in October of that year. The PPP won and Bhutto was again named Prime Minister. Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari became the new president in November 1993.

Nuclear Proliferation

With Bhutto in office, relations between India and Pakistan became more tense. Bhutto openly supported the Muslim rebels in Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir, who were involved in sporadic fighting against the Indian army. She also announced that Pakistan would continue with its nuclear weapons development programme, raising concerns that a nuclear arms race could start between Pakistan and India, which is believed to have had nuclear weapons since the 1970s. In February 1992, when the Pakistani government admitted to having nuclear capability, it claimed that its nuclear weapons programme had been stopped at the level achieved in 1989-that is, with an actual nuclear device far from completion. In 1996 the United States returned to a policy of delaying delivery of military equipment to Pakistan owing to China having supplied nuclear-weapons-related materials in 1995. Relations between Pakistan and India deteriorated in early 1996, when each country accused the other of conducting nuclear tests, though the first officially confirmed tests did not take place for another two years.

Islamic Activism

Pakistan has generally been considered a moderate Islamic state; Islamic fundamentalists won only nine National Assembly seats in the 1993 elections; however, during the 1990s Islamic activists seemed to be gaining in influence. There were persistent reports of discrimination against religious minorities. The incidents increased after 1991 when the National Assembly ruled that the criminal code should conform to Islamic law and the death sentence was made mandatory for a blasphemy conviction.In February 1995 the position of religious minorities was highlighted by the conviction and sentencing to death of two Christians, one aged 14, for the alleged writing of blasphemous remarks on a mosque wall in a village in Punjab province. The imposition of the death sentence on a child and questions surrounding the evidence provoked an outcry within Pakistan, as well as abroad. The High Court at the end of the month overturned the conviction, saying there was no evidence to sustain it; earlier the original complainant, an imam (Muslim prayer leader) in the village, had withdrawn his charges. The government, which had supported the changes in the law, appeared caught in a dilemma. Benazir Bhutto described herself as "shocked" by the sentences but declined to intervene. However, following the High Court ruling she said there would be a review of the law.
In June 1995 violence flared in Karachi over Bhutto's alleged condemnation of the ethnically based Mohajor Qaumi Movement, leaving over 290 people dead; all-party talks with the movement were convened immediately afterwards, but did not bring the hoped-for ceasefire in the city. In October a number of army officers were arrested over an attempted Islamic fundamentalist coup. Tension with India following a mysterious rocket strike on a mosque in the Pakistani province of Azad Kashmir, bordering Indian-controlled Kashmir, escalated into heavy fighting along the Kashmir ceasefire line in January 1996. In April 1996 the former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan formed an anti-government political group, the Justice Movement, while bombings and political violence took place in Lahore and elsewhere.

Recent Developments

In November 1996 Bhutto's government was for the second time dismissed by the president under renewed charges of corruption and misrule. The National Assembly was dissolved for the third time since civilian rule replaced military rule. Following Bhutto's petitioning of the Supreme Court to reinstate her, the court voted by a 6-1 majority to reject her appeal.
On February 3, 1997, elections were held in order to replace the Bhutto government. A low turnout (around 30 per cent), mainly because of widespread disgust over politics, nevertheless produced a vast majority for former prime minister Sharif. The PML faction led by Sharif won 130 out of 217 seats, with Bhutto's PPP winning only 20 seats. Despite his large majority and his election having been welcomed by the business community, Sharif has to contend with a president vying for greater influence, indicated in his setting-up of a special council that gives the military an official governmental role-and which reflects the military's perennial influence in the country's political process. Sharif also faces widespread economic problems and rising crime and violence.
In late March 1997 the government announced the implementation of an economic revival programme aiming to enhance exports, reduce prices, and generate employment. In April the National Assembly unanimously passed a constitutional amendment removing the president's power to dissolve the assembly. This controversial ability had been used to dismiss three elected governments since 1985. The rupee was devalued in October by 8.5 per cent, an action followed (later that month) by the announcement a three-year financing package from the IMF amounting to US$1,558 million; a World Bank loan of US$250 million was announced in December.
Following a constitutional crisis, during which Sharif had accused President Leghari and the chief justice of trying to undermine his government, Leghari unexpectedly resigned his position in December; the chief justice was dismissed from his post. Sharif's position was further enhanced when his nominee for the presidential office, Muhammad Rafiq Tarar, was successfully elected.
A year after enquiries into corruption allegations against the Bhutto family begun, 12 corruption cases were filed with Pakistan's accountability commission in January 1998. Although the family's Swiss bank accounts had been frozen in September, courts in the United Kingdom questioned the legality of the request for release of all documents held in the United Kingdom pertaining to the Bhutto's finances and dealings. Talks with India resumed in January regarding the possibility of a resolution to the Kashmir situation. A complementary working party has been established, which also covers the issue of the disputed Himalayan territory of Siachen. In April Pakistan openly tested a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 1,500 km (930 mi). Following five underground nuclear tests by India in May 1998, Pakistan responded within days with six nuclear tests. The events further heightened tensions between the two countries.

Aligarh Movement [1858-98]

The War of Independence 1857 ended in disaster for the Muslims. The British chose to believe that the Muslims were responsible for the anti-British uprising; therefore they made them the subject of ruthless punishments and merciless vengeance. The British had always looked upon the Muslims as their adversaries because they had ousted them from power. With the rebellion of 1857, this feeling was intensified and every attempt was made to ruin and suppress the Muslims forever. Their efforts resulted in the liquidation of the Mughal rule and the Sub-continent came directly under the British crown.

After dislodging the Muslim rulers from the throne, the new rulers, the British, implemented a new educational policy with drastic changes. The policy banned Arabic, Persian and religious education in schools and made English not only the medium of instruction but also the official language in 1835. This spawned a negative attitude amongst the Muslims towards everything modern and western, and a disinclination to make use of the opportunities available under the new regime. This tendency, had it continued for long, would have proven disastrous for the Muslim community.

Seeing this atmosphere of despair and despondency, Sir Syed launched his attempts to revive the spirit of progress within the Muslim community of India. He was convinced that the Muslims in their attempt to regenerate themselves, had failed to realize the fact that mankind had entered a very important phase of its existence, i.e., an era of science and learning. He knew that the realization of the very fact was the source of progress and prosperity for the British. Therefore, modern education became the pivot of his movement for regeneration of the Indian Muslims. He tried to transform the Muslim outlook from a medieval one to a modern one.

Sir Syed's first and foremost objective was to acquaint the British with the Indian mind; his next goal was to open the minds of his countrymen to European literature, science and technology.

Therefore, in order to attain these goals, Sir Syed launched the Aligarh Movement of which Aligarh was the center. He had two immediate objectives in mind: to remove the state of misunderstanding and tension between the Muslims and the new British government, and to induce them to go after the opportunities available under the new regime without deviating in any way from the fundamentals of their faith.

Keeping education and social reform as the two planks of his program, he launched the Aligarh Movement with the following objectives:

1. To create an atmosphere of mutual understanding between the British government and the Muslims.

2. To persuade Muslims to learn English education.

3. To persuade Muslims to abstain from politics of agitation.

4. To produce an intellectual class from amongst the Muslim community.

Fortunately, Syed Ahmad Khan was able to attract into his orbit a number of sincere friends who shared his views and helped him. Among them were well-known figures like Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk, Hali, Shibli, Maulvi Nazir Ahmad, Chiragh Ali, Mohammad Hayat, and Zakaullah. Above all, his gifted son Syed Mahmud, a renowned scholar, jurist and educationist, was a great source of help to him.

Syed Ahmad also succeeded in enlisting the services of a number of distinguished English professors like Bech, Morison, Raleigh and Arnold who gave their best in building up the Aligarh College into a first-rate institution.

A brief chronology of Syed Ahmad's efforts is given below:

1859: Built Gulshan School in Muradabad.

1863: Set up Victoria School in Ghazipur.

1864: Set up the Scientific Society in Aligarh. This society was involved in the translation of English works into the native language.

1866: Aligarh Institute Gazette. This imparted information on history; ancient and modern science of agriculture, natural and physical sciences and advanced mathematics.

1870: Committee Striving for the Educational Progress of Muslims.

1875: Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental School (M. A. O.), Aligarh, setup on the pattern of English public schools. Later raised to the level of college in 1877 and university in 1913.

1886: Muhammadan Educational Conference. This conference met every year to take stock of the educational problems of the Muslims and to persuade them to get modern education and abstain from politics. It later became the political mouthpiece of the Indian Muslims and was the forerunner of the Muslim League.

Besides his prominent role in the educational uplift of the Muslims, Syed Ahmad Khan's writings played an important role in popularizing the ideals for which the Aligarh stood. His essay on "The Causes of Indian Revolt in 1858", and other writings such as "Loyal Muhammadans of India", Tabyin-ul-Kalam and "A Series of Essays on the Life of Muhammad and Subjects Subsidiary Therein" helped to create cordial relations between the British Government and the Indian Muslims. They also helped to remove misunderstandings about Islam and Christianity.It was from this platform that Syed Ahmad Khan strongly advised the Muslims against joining the Hindu dominated Congress. He was in favor of reserved seats for Muslims and also promoted the idea that Hindus and Muslims are two distinct nations. This idea led to the Two-Nation Theory.

Syed Ahmad Khan's Aligarh Movement played a significant role in bringing about an intellectual revolution among the Indian Muslims. Thus it succeeded in achieving its major objectives, i.e. educational progress and social reform. His efforts earned Sir Syed the title "Prophet of Education".