Adil Najam
The obvious and logical followup to our last ATP Poll is to now ask the question: which of our leaders did the most harm to Pakistan? A number of readers suggested, and we agree, that such a poll should be conducted. We ask only that you please respond to the question with the same care with which it has been structured.
As we had done in the last poll, we have structured the question carefully to focus only the harm that these leaders might have caused (all leaders do bad things as well as good, some more and some less).
Please focus on the negative actions these leaders were themselves responsible for, and not as much on things that might have been out of their own control.
The Question: Focusing primarily on what you consider ‘negative’ actions taken by them during their stint(s) in power, who, amongst the following, do you think did the most ‘harm’ to Pakistan?
As others have suggested, it is not at all necessary that those who got the most votes for doing ‘good’ will automatically get least votes for doing ‘harm.’ Since we have been asking people to focus only on one or the other, it is not entirely impossible that the same person is deemed to have done a lot of good as well as a lot of harm; albeit by a different set of voters – in a society as divided as Pakistan this is not just possible, but even likely.
As in the last poll, the current leadership is not included (although we did conduct a poll grading them recently) and only those whose tenure is now behind us are included, from Ayub Khan onwards. As before, for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif consider the combined impact of two stints they each had in power. Do also please tell us which of their actions you think had the most harmful and lasting impacts on Pakistan’s well-being as a nation.
We eagerly await your views on this, in the poll as well as in the comments.
For some reason, it won’t post the whole link. Well, one can find it by googling for Hekmatyar , ZAB and the ISI. I think the wikipedia article on Hekmatyar also gives some references on this
The correct link for the cultivation of the Islamist movement in Afghanistan during the ZAB period is
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttn ews%5Btt_news%5D=27452
This is rather difficult to answer. The straight forward part is to note that BB and NS did relatively less damage than the others only because they had less time. The other 4, on the other hand, had a lot more time and power, and did much more serious harm to the country.
Zia’s evil is the easiest to recognize and I’m pretty certain he will get the highest votes here. But it would be superficial to say that he beats the others by a huge margin, even if one were to say that he did more damage.
Ayub:
Ayub’s main contribution to damaging Pakistan is in the form of setting some very bad precedents which still haunt us.
* Brought the military into politics for the first time.
* Ayub played his part in shelving the Bogra formula. For those who don’t know, the Bogra formula was proposed in 1954 to resolve the prolonged deadlock over how to distribute seats between the 5 provinces (East Pakistan and the 4 provinces in West Pakistan). The constituent assembly was about to meet to discuss a draft of the constitution based on the Bogra formula, when Ghulam Muhamad dissolved the assembly with the support of Iskandar Mirza and Ayub. It was this dissolution of the assembly that was validated by the Supreme court in the famous Tamizuddin case by a bench headed by Justice Munir. Later, when Ayub came into power, he continued with one unit.
* Ayub’s period seriously increased the alienation among East Pakistanis to such an extent that they were on the brink of parting ways by the time he left.
* Rigging of the 1964 elections.
* Lack of media freedom and even torture of political opponents.
* The 1965 war was a blunder.
However, I would disagree with the criticism that Pakistan became a cliant state of the US under Ayub. Yes, Pakistan was in the US camp, but also developed close ties with China in the Ayub period. And our relations with the US weren’t one sided. Pakistan got significant economic and military assistance, so it’s wrong to say that we got nothing in return. Of course one can debate whether Pakistan would have been better off by opting for the Soviet camp or trying to remain unaligned, but that’s a tangent and does not prove that the Pak-US alliance was a lose-lose thing for Pakistan.
ZAB:
Apart from being the one who had the best opportunity to do a lot of good (being very powerful and having popular support), and being the big idiot who squandered this chance, ZAB also did very serious damage to the national psyche. How Zia messed up the people’s minds is easier to notice because it was direct, but what ZAB did was perhaps equally harmful. ZAB is also largely responsible for the extreme ideological polarization we see in Pakistan today and Zia’s rule itself. Like Ayub, he also set some bad precedents.
* His shady role in the 1965 war and the way he scored cheep political points by accusing Ayub of selling out at Tashkent.
* Hijacked the anti-Ayub movement. The PPP came into being as a result of this movement, not the other way around. ZAB simply hijacked it and created this personality cult rather than trying to build the PPP into a force with genuine intra-party democracy where ordinary party workers have a real say in running its affairs.
* His role in 1971. Jialas like to deny this by talking about Yahya and Ayub, but that only proves that all three of them were idiots. Also, any student of Pakistan’s history must watch this clip and note the language he uses for Bangalis towards the end:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51I1WWXH0Gc
* Contrary to common rhetoric, the ideological distortions in our textbooks started under ZAB (read the Nayyar report for instance).
* It was under ZAB that Pakistan started cultivating the Islamist movement in Afghanistan. For example, read
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttn ews%5Btt_news%5D=27452
* Created the political wing of the ISI.
* Created the federal security force, which was known for ‘badmashi’
* Fascistic tendencies. Brutal treatment of the opposition and very little tolerance for descent. Many people were beaten up and some even killed. The FSF and the ISI’s political wing were used against the opposition or even people within the PPP who dared to descent.
* Did not follow his own constitution and suspended many human rights clauses soon after it was passed.
* Could not tolerate independent minded judges. Example, remember the Peshawar high court CJ who was removed by Bhutto? Interestingly enough, this judge was restored by Zia and was one of the 3 who ruled in favour of ZAB in his murder case despite having a personal reason for taking revenge.
* ZAB and the PPP took the politics of patronage to a new level and packaged it under the slogan of being pro-people. The PPP’s culture of illegitimate favours and jobs for jialas, all justified in the name of the PPP being a party of the masses.
* Politicization of institutions in a bad way.
* Rigging in the 1977 elections, even though the PPP would have won without rigging. (This along with the rest of ZAB’s history, suggests that if the PPP’s chances of winning were poor, they would probably not have desisted from ‘dalda’ on a larger scale).
All in all, this is a pretty long list. Just like there has been a consciounse effort by many people to speak and write about the evils of Zia’s rule, we need a truth movement about ZAB, which brings these things out in the open.
Zia:
I will save my time by not writing anything here because the bad things Zia did are widely recognized and well-publicized.
Musharraf:
Many of the bad things Mush did are widely recognized, so I’ll avoid giving a long list. Some of the criticism directed against Mush is also outrightly wrong, for example some people would have liked Pakistan to join the Taliban after 911. Or there are those misguided women rights activists who say that 33 % seats for women in the assemblies are unimportant, or that the amendments to the hudood laws are only cosmetic.
Overall, the damage in Mush’s period is about lost opportunities, stupid u-turns such as the NRO, unnecessary compromises allowing excellent projects like devolution and police reforms to suffer, lack of clarity on fighting Taliban, a very sick form of consumerism, the rape of the environment, weakening of our culture, increase in ideological polarization, and damage to our social fabrick. Some of the last few things were done in the name of development and moving away from religious extremism, and unfortunately a lot of Pakistanis, including many of Mush’s opponents, fail to recognize how detrimental all this is. This is somewhat similar to the way some of ZAB’s gimicks in the name of pro-poor politics seriously harmed Pakistan but many people are still unduely enamored with him.
Musharraf votes are due to the fact that he is a recent leader but Nawaz Sharif and Benazir are much worse. They are leaders of Nepotism and ethnic favortism.
Musharraf has done a lot for women and minorities and thats enough for me.
Zia was the worst because he really harmed the Islamic flavor of Pakistan from a tolerant society to a Mullah society. Women suffered the most I would say.
I think the next poll should be:
Which leader is still harming the Pakistan, the most?
Nawaz Sharif in my opinion is the most backward leader in the current lot. He has hijacked the whole country for his own revenge. He could have used his charismatic personality for something positive but no.,
Rebuking Nawaz Sharif does not mean that I am supporting
Altaf Hussain.
PS. I would nt mind to hang out with Nawaz Sharif, he is a very sweet person, but would I give him the Government? Never!