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Dear Yemeen Zuberi Sahib,
Jinnah never wanted Pakistan. He had accepted the three wing con-federation offered by the British after the Congress had accepted it. The Center would have Defense, Foreign Affairs and Communications. The rest would be in the hands of the Confederees.
Nehru and others in the Congress felt that with Jinnah in the government, they would not have their way, as in the Interim government, Liaquat as the Finance Minister had imposed heavy taxes on business and industry, the essential financiers of the Congress.
Nehru addressing a press conference in Bombay said that the Constituent Assembly of India will not be bound by these agreements.
Jinnah, fell into the trap, took the bait or whatever, withdrew from the agreement saying that the Congress when it does not have real power, acts in such a way, how could it be trusted after it had actual power.
Only Bengal had a Muslim League government in 1945-46; The Punjab had a coalition of Congress and Muslim opponents of Jinnah, the Frontier had a Congress government, Sind had a coalition and Baluchistan was governed by the Governor General.
Civil services, business, education and industry in all the provinces which became Pakistan were controlled by non-Muslims. They, nearly all, left for India and incoming Muslim immigrants took over. In 1947, there were 83 Muslim I.C.S officers, one from Bengal, 51 immigrants and 31 from the Punjab-none from Sind, NWFP or Baluchistan.
These I.C.S officers looked down upon all others.
Every one in Pakistan bowed down to Jinnah, but he made a critical mistake of declaring Urdu the national-official language of the country, a language spoken by less than 5% of the population.
After his death Liaquat had to make deals with everyone, he had only Karachi as his constituency in the country.
Liaquat was empowered by the ‘Pindi’ conspiracy. He planned elections etc, so they killed him.
Nazimuddin took over but was soon overthrown by the bureaucrats.
When the bureaucrats felt that in the Jan 1959 elections, Bengalis would take over, they handed the government to the army.
After Ayub-Yahya Martial Law, the elections gave a majority to Sheikh Mujib who could, with the help of NAP and other such West Pakistan parties, get a Constitution passed with full provincial autonomy. The army would lose the loot.
Bhutto came to their rescue. He refused to attend the scheduled meeting of the Assembly and supported a military takeover.
The military perpetrated a reign of terror. Millions were killed, ran away to India, hundreds of thousands of women raped-Lt Gen Tikka Khan boasted on arrival at the Dacca airport that ‘we will change your race’. India intervened. The Pakistan army surrendered.
Bangladesh was formed.
Bhutto took over in the West and spurred by self-aggrandizement, did not curb the army.
When the army had ‘recovered’ from the humiliation, they supported by the civil service, the Mullahs and landowners (I call them The Evil Quad) overthrew Bhutto and eventually hung him to death.
Zia introduced Wahhabism, a culture of intolerance and cruelty.
He was obsessed by the Afghan ‘Jihad’ but when the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R made a deal, he rejected it and the U.S. sent him in a fiery plane to his Jannat Houris.
After Zia, there was the BB-Sharif musical chairs-they danced to the military tune, (A Lt General publicly snubbed BB, the PM).
N.S won big in 1998, and tried to get the army under control. He even appointed Pervez Musharraf as the army chief thinking that as a Mohajir, he would remain obedient (did not know that in the army there are no Mohajirs, Punjabis; they are all one ethnicity-Army).
In any case he fired the Navy Chief, forced the army chief to retire.
He planned to retire Musharraf who heard of the plan and confronted him. N.S told him he would not do that and added the office of the Joint chief of armed forces to Musharraf portfolio.
Musharraf was due to make an official visit to Sri Lanka. N.S decided to depose him while he was out of the country.
Musharraf heard of the plan and placed his loyal Lt Generals in key places.
Announcement of Musharraf’s replacement was made while he in an airplane on the way back. It was announced on the TV again and again.
When his replacement went to G.H.Q to take charge, the deputy told him that only the Chief (Musharraf) could hand over charge of the office.
The replacement returned to the Prime Minister House.
The deputy Chief of the staff had the TV station shut down, sent soldiers to the Prime Minister House; N.S was slapped around and arrested.
The government had asked Musharraf to land his plane at a small airport in Sind (not in Karachi) or go to India. Musharraf said, “Over my dead body”
The Corp Commander of Karachi went to Karachi airport, had the trucks parked on the runways removed and Musharraf’s plane landed.
Musharraf made the usual speech that it was his duty to save the country.
Musharraf became the international pariah. 9/11 rescued him; he agreed to help the U.S.A in every way he could.
Musharraf was toppled because BB had made a deal with U.S.A.
B.B was shot dead; since then the old Musical Chairs have been played, the latest dancer is Imran aka Taliban Khan.
So you can see that Pakistan’s very genesis was defective.
It ceased to exist in 1971 and what is left is an army colony.
Dr. S. Akhtar Ehtisham