Pakistan | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947–1956[1] | |||||||||
| Anthem: قومی ترانہ (Urdu) Qaumi Taranah (1954–56) "The National Anthem" | |||||||||
.svg) Land controlled by the Dominion of Pakistan shown in dark green;land claimed but not controlled shown in light green | |||||||||
| Capital | Karachi | ||||||||
| Official languages | English[i] | ||||||||
| Recognised national languages | Urdu,[ii]Bengali[iii] | ||||||||
| Demonym | Pakistani | ||||||||
| Government | Federal parliamentaryconstitutional monarchy | ||||||||
| Monarch | |||||||||
• 1947–1952 | George VI | ||||||||
• 1952–1956 | Elizabeth II | ||||||||
| Governor-General | |||||||||
• 1947–1948 | Muhammad Ali Jinnah | ||||||||
• 1948–1951 | Khawaja Nazimuddin | ||||||||
• 1951–1955 | Malik Ghulam Muhammad | ||||||||
• 1955–1956 | Iskander Mirza | ||||||||
| Prime Minister | |||||||||
• 1947–1951 | Liaquat Ali Khan | ||||||||
• 1951–1953 | Khawaja Nazimuddin | ||||||||
• 1953–1955 | Mohammad Ali Bogra | ||||||||
• 1955–1956 | Chaudhry Mohammad Ali | ||||||||
| Legislature | Constituent Assembly | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
| 14 August 1947[2] | |||||||||
| 23 March 1956 | |||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
• Total | 1,030,373 km2 (397,829 sq mi) | ||||||||
| Currency | Indian rupee (1947–1948) Pakistani rupee (1948–1956) | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Pakistan Bangladesh India[a] | ||||||||
TheDominion of Pakistan, officiallyPakistan,[3] was an independent federaldominion in the BritishCommonwealth of Nations, which existed from14 August 1947 to23 March 1956. It was created by the passing of theIndian Independence Act 1947 by theBritish parliament, which also created an independentDominion of India.
The new dominion consisted of thosepresidencies and provinces of British India which were allocated to it in thePartition of India. Until 1947, these regions had been ruled by theUnited Kingdom as a part of theBritish Empire.
Its status as a federal dominion ended in 1956 with the completion of theConstitution of Pakistan, which established the country as a republic. The constitution also administratively split the nation intoWest Pakistan andEast Pakistan. Until then, these provinces had been governed as a singular entity, despite being separate geographicexclaves. Eventually, the East becameBangladesh and the West becamePakistan.
During the year that followed its independence, the new country was joined by theprincely states of Pakistan, which were ruled by princes who had previously been insubsidiary alliances with the British. These states acceded to Pakistan one by one as their rulers signedInstruments of Accession. For many years, these states enjoyed a special status within the dominion and later the republic, but they were slowly incorporated into the provinces. The last remnants of their internal self-government were lost by 1974.[not verified in body]
Section 1 of theIndian Independence Act 1947 provided that from "the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively asIndia andPakistan." Muslims had been pushing for their own state since at least 1940 (see theLahore resolution), believing they would become second-class citizens in a Hindu-majority India otherwise. The British monarch became the head of state of both the new dominions, with Pakistan sharing a king with the United Kingdom and the otherdominions of the British Commonwealth, and the monarch's constitutional roles in Pakistan were delegated to theGovernor-General of Pakistan.
Before August 1947, about half of the area of present-day Pakistan was part ofBritish India, which was directly governed by the British in the name of theBritish Crown, while the remainder wereprincely states insubsidiary alliances with the British, enjoying semi-autonomous self-government. The British abandoned these alliances in August 1947, leaving the states entirely independent, and between 1947 and 1948 the states all acceded to Pakistan, while retaining internal self-government for several years.
More than ten million people migrated across the new borders and between 200,000 and 2,000,000[4][5][6][7] people died in the spate of communal violence in the Punjab in what some scholars have described as a 'retributive genocide' between the religions.[8] The Pakistani government claimed that 50,000 Muslim women were abducted and raped by Hindu and Sikh men and similarly the Indian government claimed that Muslims abducted and raped 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women.[9][10][11] The two governments agreed to repatriate abducted women and thousands of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim women were repatriated to their families in the 1950s. The dispute over Kashmir escalated into thefirst war betweenIndia andPakistan. With the assistance of theUnited Nations (UN) the war was ended but it became theKashmir dispute, unresolved as of 2024[update].
In 1947, thefounding fathers of Pakistan agreed to appointLiaquat Ali Khan as the country'sfirstprime minister, withMuhammad Ali Jinnah as both firstgovernor-general andspeaker of theState Parliament.[12] Mountbatten had offered to serve as Governor-general of both India and Pakistan but Jinnah refused this offer.[13]
The first formal step to transform Pakistan into an ideological Islamic state was taken in March 1949 when Liaquat Ali Khan introduced theObjectives Resolution in theConstituent Assembly. The Objectives Resolution declared that sovereignty over the entire universe belongs toAllah. Support for the Objectives Resolution and the transformation of Pakistan into an Islamic state was led by Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, a respectedDeobandi alim (scholar) who occupied the position ofShaykh al-Islam in Pakistan in 1949, andMaulana Mawdudi ofJamaat-i Islami.[14][15]
Indian Muslims from theUnited Provinces,Bombay Province,Central Provinces and other areas of India continued migrating to Pakistan throughout the 1950 and 1960s and settled mainly in urbanSindh, particularly in the new country's first capital,Karachi.[16] Prime Minister Ali Khan established a strong government and had to face challenges soon after gaining the office.[12] His Finance SecretaryVictor Turner announced the country's first monetary policy by establishing theState Bank, theFederal Bureau of Statistics and theFederal Board of Revenue to improve statistical knowledge, finance, taxation, and revenue collection in the country.[17] There were also problems because India cut off water supply to Pakistan from two canal headworks in its side ofPunjab on 1 April 1948 and also withheld delivering Pakistan its share of the assets and funds of United India, which theIndian government released afterGandhi's pressurisation.[18]
In a 1948 speech, Jinnah declared that "Urdu alone would be the state language and thelingua franca of the Pakistan state", although at the same time he called for theBengali language to be the official language of theBengal province.[19] Nonetheless, tensions began to grow inEast Bengal.[19] Jinnah's health further deteriorated and he died in 1948. Bengali leader, SirKhawaja Nazimuddin succeeded as the governor general of Pakistan.[20]
During a massive political rally in 1951, Prime Minister Ali Khan wasassassinated, and Nazimuddin became the second prime minister.[12] Tensions inEast Pakistan reached a climax in 1952, when the East Pakistani police opened fire on studentsprotesting for the Bengali language to receive equal status with Urdu. The situation was controlled by Nazimuddin who issued a waiver granting the Bengali language equal status, a right codified in the 1956 constitution. In 1953 at the instigation of religious parties, anti-Ahmadiyya riots erupted, which led to many Ahmadi deaths.[21] The riots were investigated by a two-member court of inquiry in 1954,[22] which was criticised by theJamaat-e-Islami, one of the parties accused of inciting the riots.[23] This event led to the first instance of martial law in the country and began the history of military intervention into the politics and civilian affairs of the country.[24] In 1954 the controversialOne Unit Program was imposed by the lastPakistan Muslim League (PML) Prime ministerAli Bogra dividing Pakistan on theGermangeopolitical model.[25] The same year the first legislative elections were held in Pakistan, which saw thecommunists gaining control of East Pakistan.[26] The 1954 election results clarified the differences in ideology between West and East Pakistan, with East Pakistan under the influence of the Communist Party allying with theShramik Krishak Samajbadi Dal (Workers Party) and theAwami League.[26] The pro-AmericanRepublican Party gained a majority in West Pakistan, ousting the PML government.[26] After a vote of confidence in Parliament and the promulgation of the1956 constitution, which confirmed Pakistan as anIslamic republic, two notable figures became prime minister and president, as the first Bengali leaders of the country.Huseyn Suhrawardy became the prime minister leading acommunist-socialist alliance, andIskander Mirza became thefirstpresident of Pakistan.[27]
Mountbatten's proposed flag for Pakistan, consisting of the flag of the Muslim Leaguedefaced with a Union Jack in the canton.The dominion began as a federation of five provinces:East Bengal (later to becomeBangladesh),West Punjab,Balochistan,Sindh, and theNorth-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Each province had its own governor, who was appointed by the Governor-General of Pakistan. In addition, over the following year the princely states of Pakistan, which covered a significant area of West Pakistan, acceded to Pakistan. They includedBahawalpur,Khairpur,Swat,Dir,Chitral, and theKhanate of Kalat.
The controversialRadcliffe Award, not published until 17 August 1947 specified the Radcliffe Line which demarcated the border between the parts of British India allocated to the two new independentdominions of India and Pakistan. The Radcliffe Boundary Commission sought to separate the Muslim-majority regions in the east and northwest from the areas with a Hindu majority. This entailed the partition of two British provinces which did not have a uniform majority —Bengal andPunjab. The western part of Punjab became the Pakistani province ofPunjab and the eastern part became the Indian state ofPunjab. Bengal was similarly divided intoEast Bengal (in Pakistan) andWest Bengal (in India).
Under theIndian Independence Act 1947,British India was to be divided into the independent sovereign states of India and Pakistan. From 1947 to 1952, George VI was the sovereign of Pakistan, which shared the same person as its sovereign with theUnited Kingdom and the otherDominions in the BritishCommonwealth of Nations.[28][29]
Following George VI's death on 6 February 1952, his elder daughter Princess Elizabeth, who was in Kenya at that time, became the new monarch of Pakistan. During the Queen'scoronation in 1953, Elizabeth II was crowned as Queen of seven independent Commonwealth countries, including Pakistan.[30] In herCoronation Oath, the new Queen promised "to govern the Peoples of ... Pakistan ... according to their respective laws and customs".[31] The Standard of Pakistan at the Coronation was borne byMirza Abol Hassan Ispahani.[32]
Pakistan abolished the monarchy on the adoption of arepublican constitution on23 March 1956.[33] However, Pakistan became arepublic within the Commonwealth of Nations. The Queen sent a message to President Mirza which said, "I have followed with close interest the progress of your country since its establishment ... It is a source of great satisfaction to me to know that your country intends to remain within the Commonwealth. I am confident that Pakistan and other countries of the Commonwealth will continue to thrive and to benefit from their mutual association".[34]
Territorial problems arose with neighbouringAfghanistan over thePakistan–Afghanistan border in 1949, and withIndia over theLine of Control inKashmir.[12] Diplomatic recognition became a problem when theSoviet Union led byJoseph Stalin did not welcome the partition which established Pakistan and India. TheImperial State of Iran was the first country to recognise Pakistan in 1947.[35] In 1948,Ben-Gurion ofIsrael sent a secret courier to Jinnah to establish thediplomatic relations, but Jinnah did not give any response to Ben-Gurion.
After gaining Independence, Pakistan vigorously pursued bilateral relations with other Muslim countries[36] and made a wholehearted bid for leadership of theMuslim world, or at least for leadership in achieving its unity.[37] TheAli brothers had sought to project Pakistan as the natural leader of the Islamic world, in large part due to itslarge population andmilitary strength.[38] A top ranking Muslim League leader,Khaliquzzaman, declared that Pakistan would bring together all Muslim countries intoIslamistan – a pan-Islamic entity.[39] The USA, which did not approve of Pakistan's creation, was against this idea and British Prime MinisterClement Attlee voiced international opinion at the time by stating that he wished that India and Pakistan would re-unite, as opposed to the hoped-forunity of Muslim World.[40] Since most of theArab world was undergoing a nationalist awakening at the time, there was little attraction in Pakistan's pan-Islamic aspirations.[41] Some of the Arab countries saw the 'Islamistan' project as a Pakistani attempt to dominate other Muslim states.[42] Pakistan vigorously championed the right of self-determination for Muslims around the world. Pakistan's efforts for the independence movements ofIndonesia,Algeria,Tunisia,Morocco andEritrea were significant and initially led to close ties between these countries and Pakistan.[43]
Upon its independence, Pakistan suffered from several economic challenges as a result of thePartition of India. Over 6 million refugees from India to Pakistan, while several skilled non-Muslim artisans and labourers left Pakistan for the newly independent India. These occupational gaps in Pakistan's economy could not always be filled by Muslim refugees who had their own set of skills; for instance, insurance companies, manufacturing companies, clinics, and educational institutes were left crippled because their Hindu staff ventured to India.[44] Moreover, India inherited most of British India's industrial hubs and ports, with Pakistan's only major port being Karachi. In 1950, Pakistan'sper capita income was around $360 (in 1985 international dollars), and the literacy rate was only 10%. The nation encountered a lack of economic infrastructure, financial resources, and an industrial foundation, particularly with poverty rates ranging from 55% to 60% inWest Pakistan.[44]
Pakistan's economy was largely agrarian-based as agriculture constituted 53% of the country's GDP in 1947. With a population of approximately 30 million, including around 6 million residing in urban areas, about 65% of the labor force was engaged in agriculture. Agriculture contributed to 99.2% of exports and made up nearly 90% of foreign exchange earnings.
To coordinate economic development, the Pakistani government established a Development Board, a Planning Advisory Board, and an Economic Committee of the Cabinet. In 1948, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan presented the firstfive-year plan of Pakistan to the Constituent Assembly, which was conceived by theMinistry of Finance. As a part of this plan, theState Bank of Pakistan was established while economic theories such as thecost-of-production theory of value where considered to kickstart economic development.[44] The creation of this national bank gradually filled occupational gaps from partition as banking services were restored and government revenues increased.
The government opted to focus on the public sector to foster economic and industrial development because of the limited potential capital in the private sector. In the fiscal year 1949–50, Pakistan recorded a national savings rate of 2%, a foreign savings rate of 2%, and an investment rate of 4%. Manufacturing contributed 7.8% to the GDP, while services, trade, and other sectors accounted for a significant 39%, reflecting a policy centered aroundimport-substituting industrialization. The trade balance of payments indicated a deficit of 66 million rupees (Rs) during the period spanning 1949/50 to 1950/51.[45]
This five-year plan produced promising results as major urban centers such as Karachi,Dacca, andKhulna, grew tremendously and municipal services were expanded. There was a significant increase in the number of educational institutions in urban areas while health services substantially expanded. Housing areas were developed for about 500,000 refugees; however available facilities for basic services such as water supply were stretched by this population boost. Thousands of refugees still remained unhoused.[44]
After thepound sterling was devalued by theBritish government in September 1949, Indo-Pakistani trade relations significantly deteriorated as India refused to recognize thePakistani rupee. However, India decided to recognize the Pakistani rupee in February 1951 after a trade agreement with Pakistan, ending the trade war between the two countries.
In 1952, Pakistan imposed bans on the imports of cotton textiles and luxury goods, followed by comprehensive import regulations in 1953, propelling the country into the ranks of the fastest-growing nations. However, biased policies against agriculture and unfavorable trade terms between agriculture and industry led to a decline in the annual growth rate of agriculture.
New studies were conducted in 1955 after the collapse of the first five-year plan. According to the census, over 90% of the population still lived in rural areas while only 10% lived in urban areas. InEast Pakistan, the urban proportion was at 4.0% compared to 18.1% inWest Pakistan.[44]
From 1947 to 1956, Pakistan was a constitutional monarchy. The Pakistani monarch was the same person as the sovereign of the nations in the British Commonwealth of Nations.[46][29]
| Portrait | Name | Birth | Reign | Death | Consort | Relationship with Predecessor(s) | Royal House |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) | George VI | 14 December 1895 | 14 August 1947 – 6 February 1952 | 6 February 1952 |  | None (position created);Emperor of India beforepartition | Windsor |
_(cropped)_(3-to-4_aspect_ratio).jpg) | Elizabeth II | 21 April 1926 | 6 February 1952 – 23 March 1956 | 8 September 2022 |  | Daughter of George VI |
The Governor-General was the representative of the monarch in the Dominion of Pakistan.[47]
| Picture | Name (birth–death) | Took office | Left office | Appointer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) | 15 August 1947 | 11 September 1948 | |
 | Sir Khawaja Nazimuddin (1894–1964) | 14 September 1948 | 17 October 1951 | |
 | Sir Ghulam Muhammad (1895–1956) | 17 October 1951 | 7 August 1955 | |
| ||||
 | Iskander Mirza (1899–1969) | 7 August 1955 | 23 March 1956 |
The number of casualties remains a matter of dispute, with figures being claimed that range from 200,000 to 2 million victims.
There are no exact numbers of people killed and displaced, but estimates range from a few hundred thousand to two million killed and more than 10 million displaced.
An estimated 12–15 million people were displaced, and some 2 million died. The legacy of Partition (never without a capital P) remains strong today ...
2,000,000 killed in the Hindu-Muslim holocaust during the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan
In the event, largely but not exclusively as a consequence of their efforts, the entire Muslim population of the eastern Punjab districts migrated to West Punjab and the entire Sikh and Hindu populations moved to East Punjab in the midst of widespread intimidation, terror, violence, abduction, rape, and murder.
The official estimate of the number of abducted women during Partition was placed at 33,000 non-Muslim (Hindu or Sikh predominantly) women in Pakistan, and 50,000 Muslim women in India.
The horrific statistics that surround women refugees-between 75,000–100,000 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh women who were abducted by men of the other communities, subjected to multiple rapes, mutilations, and, for some, forced marriages and conversions-is matched by the treatment of the abducted women in the hands of the nation-state. In the Constituent Assembly in 1949 it was recorded that of the 50,000 Muslim women abducted in India, 8,000 of then were recovered, and of the 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women abducted, 12,000 were recovered.
In addition thousands of women on both sides of the newly formed borders (estimated range from 29,000 to 50,000 Muslim women and 15,000 to 35,000 Hindu and Sikh women) were abducted, raped, forced to convert, forced into marriage, forced back into what the two States defined as 'their proper homes,' torn apart from their families once during partition by those who abducted them, and again, after partition, by the State which tried to 'recover' and 'rehabilitate' them.
Mountbatten tried to convince Jinnah of the value of accepting him, Mountbatten, as Pakistan's first governor-general, but Jinnah refused to be moved from his determination to take that job himself.
Mawlānā Shabbīr Ahmad Usmānī, a respected Deobandī ʿālim (scholar) who was appointed to the prestigious position of Shaykh al-Islām of Pakistan in 1949, was the first to demand that Pakistan become an Islamic state. But Mawdūdī and his Jamāʿat-i Islāmī played the central part in the demand for an Islamic constitution. Mawdūdī demanded that the Constituent Assembly make an unequivocal declaration affirming the "supreme sovereignty of God" and the supremacy of the sharīʿah as the basic law of Pakistan.
The first important result of the combined efforts of the Jamāʿat-i Islāmī and the ʿulamāʿ was the passage of the Objectives Resolution in March 1949, whose formulation reflected compromise between traditionalists and modernists. The resolution embodied "the main principles on which the constitution of Pakistan is to be based." It declared that "sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty alone and the authority which He has delegated to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust," that "the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed," and that "the Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accord with the teaching and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Qurʿan and Sunna." The Objectives Resolution has been reproduced as a preamble to the constitutions of 1956, 1962, and 1973.
Pakistan: A Country Study.
Pakistan: A Country Study.
India and Pakistan remained among the king's dominions but both were set on republican courses, becoming republics within the Commonwealth in 1950 and 1956 respectively.(Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.)
Pakistan's expression of solidarity was followed, after Independence, by a vigorous pursuit of bilateral relations with Muslim countries like Iran and Turkey.
Pakistan was making a wholehearted bid for the leadership of the Muslim world, or at least for the leadership in achieving its unity.
Following Khaliquzzaman, the Ali brothers had sought to project Pakistan, with its comparatively larger manpower and military strength, as the natural leader of the Islamic world.
As a top ranking ML leader Khaliquzzaman declared, 'Pakistan would bring all Muslim countries together into Islamistan- a pan-Islamic entity'.
Within a few years the president of the Muslim League, Chaudhry Khaliq-uz-Zaman, announced that Pakistan would bring all Muslim countries together into Islamistan-a pan-Islamic entity. None of these developments within the new country elicited approval among Americans for the idea of India's partition ... British Prime Minister Clement Attlee voiced the international consensus at the time when he told the House of Commons of his hope that 'this severance may not endure.' He hoped that the proposed dominions of India and Pakistan would "in course of time, come together to form one great member state of the British Commonwealth of Nations."
During this time most of the Arab world was going through a nationalist awakening. Pan-Islamic dreams involving the unification of Muslim countries, possibly under Pakistani leadership, had little attraction.
The following year, Choudhry Khaliquzzaman toured the Middle East, pleading for the formation of an alliance or confederation of Muslim states. The Arab states, often citing Pakistan's inability to solve its problems with Muslim neighbor Afghanistan, showed little enthusiasm ... Some saw the effort to form 'Islamistan' as a Pakistani attempt to dominate other Muslim states.
The belief that the creation of Pakistan made Pakistan the true leader of Muslim causes around the world led Pakistan's diplomats to vigorously champion the cause of self-determination for fellow Muslims at the United Nations. Pakistan's founders, including Jinnah, supported anti-colonial movements:Our heart and soul go out in sympathy with those who are struggling for their freedom ... If subjugation and exploitation are carried on, there will be no peace and there will be no end to wars. Pakistani efforts on behalf of Indonesia (1948), Algeria (1948–1949), Tunisia (1948–1949), Morocco (1948–1956) and Eritrea (1960–1991) were significant and initially led to close ties between these countries and Pakistan.
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