West Pakistan

West Pakistan مغر بى پاکستان
← 1947-1970 →
Flag Coat of arms
Motto "Unity, Discipline, Faith"
Anthem "Qaumī Tarāna" ("National Anthem")
Capital	Karachi (1947-1955) Lahore (proclaimed)
Language(s)	Official: Urdu and English Unofficial minority languages: Balochi, Pashto, Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi and Kashmiri
Government	Military government Dictatorship
Martial Law Administrator
- 1960-1966	Amir Mohammad Khan
- 1966-1969	Muhammad Musa
- 1969-1970	Nur Khan
Governors
- 1955-57	Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani
- 1957-60	Akhter Husain
Legislature	West Pakistan Legislative Assembly West Pakistan High Court
Historical era	Cold War
- Established	14th August 1947
- Final settlement	22 November 1954.
- Pakistan	July 1 1970
Currency	Pakistan Rs. (M)
Internet TLD	.pk
Calling code	+92
Today part of	Pakistan

West Pakistan (Urdu: مغر بى پاکستان, Maghrābī Pākistān), common name West-Pakistan (WP), in the period between its establishment on 22 November 1955 to disintegration on July 1, 1970. This period, during which, Pakistan was divided, ended when East-Pakistan was disintegrated and succeeded to become which is now what is known as Bangladesh. The politically dominant western wing was composed of three Governor's provinces (North-West Frontier, West-Punjab and Sindh Province), one Chief Commissioner's province (Baluchistan Province), the Baluchistan States Union, several other princely states (notably Bahawalpur, Chitral, Dir, Hunza, Khairpur and Swat), the Federal Capital Territory (around Karachi) and the tribal areas.

The eastern wing formed the single province of East Bengal (including the former Assam district of Sylhet), which despite having over half of the population, had a disproportionately small number of seats in the Constituent Assembly. This inequality of the two wings and the geographical distance between them was believed to be holding up the adoption of a new constitution. To diminish the differences between the two regions, the government decided to reorganise the country as two distinct provinces under the One Unit policy announced by Prime Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Ali on 22 November 1954.

On the set of Cold War, Pakistan was a close ally of the United States, having an influential member of Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), Central Treaty Organization, and at same time was part of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries (MNAC). Pakistan was geographically divided in two wings between the Republic of India. The West Pakistan claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Pakistan, considering itself to be the reorganized continuation of the country in the United Nations. It the line that East-Pakistan was indeed a client province and its satellite state, with the believe of West-Pakistan first. West-Pakistan emerged as the one of South-Asia's largest economy, and emerged as one of South Asia's largest military power. West-Pakistan's economy was boomed and at its highest peak, and it was called as West-Germany of East. However, East-Pakistan did not benefit with the economical progress and majority of the funds for East-Pakistan was never issued. Pakistan's first Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who remained in office from 1958 until 1969, had worked for a full alignment with the West rather than neutrality. He not only secured the membership of Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) but was also a proponent of agreements that developed Central Treaty Organization (CENTO).

With the results of parliamentary elections were announced, the power of imbalance was clearly seen. A conflict that lasted only 13 days, West-Pakistan was dissolved and became what is now today known as Pakistan.

History

Parliamentary democracy

After the state establishment, the West-Pakistan claimed the exclusive mandate of entire Pakistan, with majority of the leading figures in Pakistan Movement presented in West-Pakistan. The province of West Pakistan was created on 14 October 1947 by the merger of the provinces, states and tribal areas of the western wing. The province was composed of twelve divisions and the provincial capital was established at Karachi. The province of East Bengal was renamed East-Pakistan with the provincial capital at Dacca. The two states had different political ideologies and different lingual cultural aspect. The West-Pakistan sided with the United States and her Western Allies, and East-Pakistan remained sympathetic to Soviet Union and her Eastern Bloc. The state was founded on main basis of country having a parliamentary democracy, and Islam as its state religion. The ethnic and religious violence in Lahore was spread all over the country. This inter-communal violence soon spread to India, and a regional conflicts put West-Pakistan and India to a war-threatening situation. Prime ministers of Pakistan and India, met in Lahore on emergency basis and Muhammad Ali Bogra, Prime minister of Pakistan, declared martial law in Lahore to curbed the violence.

Military dictatorships

However, the parliamentary democracy in both state was failed to process and during the period of 1947 till 1959, seven Prime ministers, four Governors-General and one President were forcefully removed either by the constitutional and the military coup d'état. The Urdu-speaking class and the Bengali nation was forcefully removed from the affairs of West-Pakistan. With the imposition of the martial law led by then-Army Commander-in-Chief General Ayub Khan, the central government was moved from Karachi to Army Generals Combatant Headquarters (The GHQ) at Rawalpindi in 1959, whilst the federal legislature was moved to Dacca. In 1963, Rawalpindi had became ineffective federal capital and a new city was planned and constructed which was completed in 1965. In 1965, the capital and central government was finally re-located in Islamabad.

First War with India

Further information: Indo-Pakistani War of 1965

In 1965, Foreign minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Defence minister Vice-Admiral Afzal Rahman Khan approached to President Ayub Khan for the approval of the covert-back operation, codename Operation Gibraltar. Operation Gibraltar was codename of a airborne mission to infiltrate in Indian Kashmir, and was originally planned to executed by Army Special Service Group and Air Force Special Service Wing. At night of September 1965, airborne troops began to parachuted in Indian Kashmir and an assault was begun by Pakistan Army's ground troops. The Pakistan Airborne troops managed to occupy much of the Indian-held Kashmir and was only 6 mile (10 km) away from Srinagar, this was the closest Pakistan airborne troops were ever got to capture the city. On September 1965, India launched a counter-attack and the airborne troops were pushed back to Azad Kashmir Province. The operation brutally failed and Indian Armed Forces attack West Pakistan with full force.

This month long war ended with no permanent territorial changes, and Soviet Union intervened in the conflict. In the of month of September, both West-Pakistan and India signed Tashkent Declaration. This ceasefire was criticized both in India and Pakistan, public resentment against each other grew. In West-Pakistan, Ayub Khan deposed Bhutto as his Foreign minister, and Vice-Admiral Khan blamed Bhutto for this failure. As aftermath, Bhutto tapped anti-Ayub Khan movement and tapped a civil disobedience in entire West-Pakistan. Amid protests and spontaneous demonstration broke out in the entire country and Ayub Khan lost the control over of the country. In 1967, another martial law was imposed by another Army Commander-in-Chief General Yahya Khan, who designated himself as the Chief Martial Law Administrator.

Position toward East-Pakistan

During this episode, the East-Pakistan remained quiet and did not intervened in the West-Pakistan's conflict with India. East-Pakistan's Military government remained silenced and did not send any troops to press any pressure on Eastern India. This line of action became a negative consequences and evidently contributed in a resentment against the military government of East-Pakistan. West-Pakistan accused East-Pakistan for not taking any action even, in fact, Eastern Air Command of Indian Air Force did attack the East-Pakistan's Air Force. However, East-Pakistan defended only by an understrength infantry division, the 14th Infantry Division, sixteen fighter jet and no tanks or no navy was established in the East-Pakistan.

Days of disintegration

West Pakistan formed a seemingly homogeneous block but with marked linguistic and ethnic distinctions and the One Unit policy was regarded as a rational administrative reform which would reduce expenditure and eliminate provincial prejudices. However with the military coup of 1958, trouble loomed for the province when the office of Chief Minister was abolished and the President took over executive powers for West-Pakistan. The province of West Pakistan was dissolved in July 1970 by President Yahya Khan. In 1969, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was critical of the disparity in military resources deployed in East and West Pakistan, calling for greater autonomy for East Pakistan, which ultimately led to the Bangladesh Liberation war and another war between India and Pakistan in 1971.

Power struggle between East and West-Pakistan

After the 1965 war, the cultural revolution and resentment towards military dictatorship began to rise, in West-Pakistan. Following the deposing of Foreign minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto by Ayub Khan, this struggle began to heightened. Bhutto gathered and united the scattered democratic socialist and marxist mass into one single platform when he founded the Pakistan Peoples Party in 1967. The socialists tapped a wave of anger and opposition against United States allied President in West Pakistan alone. The socialists integrated in poor and urban provinces of West-Pakistan, educating people to cast their vote for their better future, and the importance of democracy was widely sense in the entire county. The socialists, under Bhutto's guidance and leadership, played a vital role in managing labor strikes and civil disobedient when Khan's authority began to be challenged. The military government responded fiercely after arresting the senior socialists' leadership, notably Bhutto, Mubashir Hassan, and Malick Mirage. This sparked the gruesome violence in West and increased a pressure to Khan that he was unable to endure. Prompting, Khan managed and called for a Round Table Conference in Rawalpindi, but socialists led by Bhutto refused to accept Ayub's continuation in office and the East-Pakistani politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Six point movement for regional autonomy.

In 1969, Khan handed over the powers to Army Chief of Staff General Yahya Khan who promised to hold elections within two years. Meantime, Bhutto extensively worked to gather and unite the leftists organizations, and the leftists under Bhutto's leadership, participated with full force, becoming the vital players in country's politics. The democratic socialist leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, allied with left-wing parties, participated in General elections held in December 1970 saw the far left Awami League under Mujibur Rahman win an overall majority of seats in parliament (all but two of the 162 seats allocated to East Pakistan). The Awami League advocated greater autonomy for East Pakistan but the military government did not permit Mujibur Rahman to form a government. In November 1971, General Yahya Khan ordered Pakistan Army Corps of Military Police to led the arrest of both Bhutto and Rehman and ordered an action to be taken against the East-Pakistan's military government.

On 25 March 1971, West-Pakistan began a civil war to subdue the democratic victory of East Pakistanis. This began the war between the Pakistani military and the Mukhti Bahini. The resulting refugee crisis led to the intervention by India, eventually leading to the surrender of the Pakistani Army. East Pakistan suffered a genocide of its Bengali population. East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971. The term West Pakistan became redundant.

Government

West-Pakistan went through many political changes. From 1947 till 1956, West-Pakistan was governed under a parliamentary republic with Prime minister as the head of the government and state. The 1956 Constitution provided the country with Semi-Presidential system and the office of President was inaugurated the same year. Major-General (retired) Iskander Mirza became the country's first President, but the system did not evolved for more than the three years. In 1958, General Ayub Khan, Army Commander-in-Chief, imposed the martial law and the military government was installed instead.

The office of Governor of West Pakistan was a largely ceremonial position but later Governors wielded some executive powers as well. The first Governor was Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani, who was also the last Governor of West Punjab. Ayub Khan abolished the Governor's office and instead established the Martial Law Administrator of West-Pakistan.

The office Chief Minister of West-Pakistan was the chief executive of the province and the leader of the largest party in the provincial assembly. The first Chief Minister was Dr Khan Sahib who had served twice as Chief Minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prior to independence. The office of Chief Minister was abolished in 1958 when Ayub Khan took over the administration of West-Pakistan.

The legislature was the West Pakistan Legislative Assembly but it had no lasting effects of West-Pakistan's affair. The assembly was soon disbanded and the legislature was moved to East-Pakistan.

The twelve divisions of West Pakistan province were Bahawalpur, Dera Ismail Khan, Hyderabad, Kalat, Khairpur, Lahore, Malakand, Multan, Peshawar, Quetta, Rawalpindi, and Sargodha; all named after their capitals except the capital of Malakand was Saidu, and Rawalpindi was administered from Islamabad. The province also incorporated the former Omani enclave of Gwadar following its purchase in 1958, and the former Federal Capital Territory (Karachi) in 1961; the latter forming a new division in its own right.

Governors of West Pakistan

Tenure	Governor of West Pakistan	Party Background	Form of Government
14 October 1955 - 27 August 1957	Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani	Muslim League	Democratic Government
September 1957 - 12 April 1960	Akhter Husain	Independent	Democratic Government
12 April 1960 - 18 September 1966	Amir Mohammad Khan	Muslim League	Democratic Government
Tenure Term	Martial Law Administrator	Type of Government	Service in effect
18 September 1966 - 20 March 1969	General (retired) Muhammad Musa	Military Government	Pakistan Army
20 March 1969 - 25 March 1969	Yusuf Haroon	Civilian Government	Civilian Authority
25 March 1969 - 29 August 1969	Lieutenant-General Attiqur Rahman (first term)	Military Government	Pakistan Army
29 August 1969 - 1 September 1969	Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan	Military Government	Pakistan Army
1 September 1969 - 1 February 1970	Air Marshal Nur Khan	Military Government	Pakistan Air Force
1 February 1970 - 1 July 1970	Lieutenant-General Attiqur Rahman (second term)	Military Government	Pakistan Army
1 July 1970	Province of West Pakistan dissolved

Chief Ministers of West Pakistan

Tenure	Chief Minister of West Pakistan	Political Party
14 October 1955 - 16 July 1957	Dr Khan Sahib	Pakistan Muslim League/Republican Party
16 July 1957 - 18 March 1958	Sardar Abdur Rashid Khan	Republican Party
18 March 1958 - 7 October 1958	Nawab Muzaffar Ali Khan Qizilbash	Republican Party
7 October 1958	Office of Chief Minister abolished

See also

• Bangladesh Liberation War
• East Pakistan
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
• List of Speakers of the West Pakistan Legislative Assembly
• Partition of India