The Problems of Pakistan:
PALMER, NORMAN U.
WRITERS and WRITING The Problems of Pakistan Reviewed by Norman D. Palmer Professor of political science; member South Asm Regional Studies Department, V. of Pa. The Economy of Pakistan. By J....
...One of the most interesting chapters in Callard's book is entitled "Islam and Politics...
...To answer questions of this sort, which may provide some of the understanding that is essential for future policy, we need to be familiar with the political, economic and social problems and developments in the countries of the underdeveloped world...
...More than eight-and-a-half years elapsed between the achievement of independence and the coming into effect of the Constitution of March 23, 1956...
...On October 7, 1958, President Mirza issued a Presidential proclamation abrogating the Constitution of March 23, 1956, dismissing the Central and Provincial Governments, dissolving the National Parliament and the Provincial Assemblies, abolishing all political parties and placing Pakistan under martial law "until alternative arrangements are made...
...General Ayub Kha,n has reaffirmed General Mirza's promise "to collect a number of patriotic persons to examine the country's problems in the political field and to devise a Constitution more suitable to the genius of the Muslim people...
...517 pp...
...With foreign exchange reserves drained away and reduced to dangerous levels, Pakistan was rendered highly vulnerable to changes in international conditions of demand for its export produce and to domestic natural calamities such as crop failure...
...and all have been handicapped by a lack of reliable data on which to base their conclusions, and often by the lack of any real data at all...
...In a broadcast on October 8, 1958, General Ayub Khan stated: "Let me announce in unequivocal terms that our ultimate aim is to restore democracy but of the type that people can understand and work...
...Both are valuable as reference works and as commentaries on the state of affairs in Pakistan which produced the events of October 1958...
...By Keith Callard...
...In these nations, noted Tillman Durdin in a dispatch to the New York Times from Hong Kong in late November, 1958, "democracy collapsed because its roots were shallow, its practices illadapted to traditional patterns and it had proved inadequate to cope with the towering problems it faced.' Actually, democracy could hardly be said to have failed in these countries because it had never really been tried...
...But neither study suggests that the concurrent struggle for democracy and for better economic conditions was hopeless, or had to lead to military rule...
...The books under review show what can be done by qualified and assiduous scholars to overcome these handiAYUB KHAN: SWEEPING REFORMS caps...
...The consequences of this situation are unquestionably to place added strains on the already weak economy...
...355 pp...
...The need for these reforms and some of the obstacles which have blocked them in the past 24 The Neu...
...Thus the question inescapably arises: Was democracy never really tried because the...
...They argue that "a 'favorable' balance of trade will remain a necessity for Pakistan...
...Past experiments with a more liberal import policy were well-nigh disastrous...
...The proclamation began with this bitter indictment: "For the last two years, I have been watching, with the deepest anxiety, the ruthless struggle for power, corruption, the shameful exploitation of our simple, patriotic and industrious masses, the lack of decorum and the prostitution of Islam for political ends...
...When General Iskander Mirza turned over complete powers to General Ayub Khan, the new dictator outlined sweeping reforms which he hoped would clean up the "mess" left in Pakistan after eleven years of shaky democracy...
...By J. R. Andrus & Azizali F. Mohammed...
...Andrus and Mohammed conclude that the efforts in the direction of economic development offered some hope of contributing "to long-range improvement in the economy of Pakistan...
...Pakistan had unfavorable balances' in 1949, 1952, 1956 and 1957, and the present trends are still in that direction...
...Consequently the great debate that has been in progress on the meaning of Islam in the 20th century has been conducted by groups of men who are largely unaware of what the other side is saying, and even when the words are known, unaware of their meaning...
...In a sense it is too political, for it almost wholly neglects the basic economic and social problems which have bedeviled Pakistan since independence and which have been at once a cause and an effect of the instability and weakness that have characterized the political life of the country...
...It indicates the importance and the intricacies of they question of an Islamic state, and the limited extent to which the Constitution of 1956 actually provided for such a state...
...And yet this debate has been of great importance in the efforts to shape the political future of Pakistan-" The unhappy situation which led to the present military dictatorship in Pakistan is clearly portrayed in the two books under review...
...Pakistan is .no exception...
...Callard's study shows how difficult it was to draft a Constitution which would be adequate for a modern democratic state and which at the same time would be adaptable to the special circumstances of Pakistan and to the agreed-upon goal of an Islamic state...
...The strengths and weaknesses of these two volumes are strikingly similar...
...Moreover, they supplement each other admirably...
...Leader are cleaily outlined in these two studies...
...Both compress an amazing amount of information within relatively few pages...
...Many of Pakistan's woes are summed up in this single sentence...
...Actually, this is probably impossible SO' long as Pakistan has to import extensively from the sterling and dollar areas in order to carry on its economic development program, especially in years when the world prices and demand for jute and cotton are low...
...Among the basic problems of Pakistan which Andrus and Mohammed analyze are those of food production, land tenure, industry, fuel and power, transportation and communications, foreign trade and foreign exchange, finance, price trends, labor organization and economic development...
...All friends of Pakistan will watch with sympathetic interest the efforts of the present regime "to put this mess right and put the country on an even keel...
...They hope that General Ayub will resist the tendencies to perpetuate the military dictatorship, and that when and if Pakistan is given another chance to develop and operate the institutions of representative government, these institutions will be more truly democratic and, at the same time, "more suitable to the genius of the Muslim people...
...The work of Andrus and Mohammed is a detailed economic analysis, supported by no less than 84 tables, some of a most elaborate nature...
...Stanjord...
...Both assume a greater knowledge of recent developments in the Indian subcontinent as a whole and in Pakistan in particular than most of their persevering readers will possess...
...PAKISTAN is by far the most popu- ] lous and perhaps the most important ! of the long list of nations of Asia and Africa in which, in recent months, limited experiments with representative institutions have broken down and have been superseded by military dictatorships...
...The gulf between the spokesmen of religious orthodoxy and those who have governed the country is very great...
...Professor Callard brings his account up to the beginning of the period to which General Mirza referred, but his description of the politics of Pakistan since 1947 and of the struggle for power forms an essential background for the more recent and even more disheartening events...
...Unfortunately, few reliable and objective studies are available for most of these countries...
...Serious differences of viewpoint arose over such questions as the proper relations between the center and the units and between East and West Pakistan, the unification of West Pakistan, the official language or languages of Pakistan, and the nature of an Islamic state...
...Among these promised reforms were changes in the legal system to give the people "quicker justice," birth control, "a scientific solution to our land problems,' and enforced "austerity" in order to put the country on a sound economic footing...
...Most Pakistani writers have been too involved in the difficulties that have confronted their country since independence, whereas most non-Pakistani commentators Pakistan: A Political Study...
...8.50...
...have lacked a basic familiarity with the background of the struggle in Pakistan...
...Objective, wellwritten and clearly organized, both books suffer from what seems to have been a deliberate exclusion of historical and other background information...
...6.00...
...They are perhaps the best studies that have yet been made of the politics and economy of Pakistan...
...and Callard, while fully recognizing the obstacles to "the operation of democratic institutions" in Pakistan, finds nothing to indicate that democracy "cannot become a reality...
...pre-conditions for it did not exist, or because the leaders of these new states, with a few exceptions, did not themselves believe in democracy and did not provide the type of leadership that was necessary to make experiments in genuine democracy possible...
...It contains almost no references to the political background against which the economic developments and problems should be considered...
...and now that Constitution has been abrogated...
...Callard's book is properly labeled "a political study...
...Macmillan...
...To the extent that it can reverse these trends it must rely more on rigid control of imports than on marked expansion of exports...
Vol. 41 • December 1958 • No. 46
