Understanding Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

...contd...

I mean the poor b`stard was so terrified of the big guy that he actually DIED right there!!!!!

#34 Zee

Thanks for putting Lalbahadur Shastri`s picture.

Now THERE was a good man!

BJ .. no use trying to cover it up. You don`t how to spell .. so big deal!

My point was ... who`s the pygmy in the photo below? :-)

#34 Zee

[and not pigmy btw .. haha]

Ama yaar, you are so literal.

And what makes you so sure I did not use ``pigmy`` by design?!!

I mean what could be plainer than ``Pig my``?!!

(I thought you guys LOVED those celestial creatures!

Your very own holy cows that you absolutely refuse to eat!)

#33 by bjkumar

I think it`s clearer below who`s the giant and who`s the pygmy! (and not pigmy btw .. haha)

Those Pakistanis who are cursing their hearts out at the ZAB are well-advised to recall in whose image than man molded himself.

They should remember the character from whom the ZAB learnt his guile and his fraudulent “art” of divisiveness – and his utter contempt for others and his absolute intolerance of other sects and religions – and most importantly, his dictatorial streak!

Yup, that ZAB was merely a little pigmy!

A tiny no-consequence insignificant trivial little pigmy!

Compared to his master and his mentor!

The sonofabeach vamp himself!

The Little Pigmy

The Big Creep

I think a united Pakistan could be saved, had Bhutto accepted Sheikh Mujib`s victory in the election and sat in the parliament as leader of the opposition, just like any other democracy in the world; but instead he chose to play patsy in the hands of military establishment and effectively divided the nation in two; in order to fulfill Yahya`s aspirations to be life-time president. My personal assessment is that Mujib would have gone along with the fauji formula of two assemblies and two prime minister conveyed through bhutto ``idhar hum udhar tum``, but Bengalis were not ready to live under dictatorship no more. There was simply no point in sacrificing so many lives and still accept a madarchod fauji running the country. So I don`t no who is the bigger evil here, the napak fauj or bhutto who opted to be its tool.

I think napak fauj is an evil and lawless institution and unless it is disgracefully dismantled and replaced by a civilian militia or revolutionary mujahideen guard, it is bound to bring more destruction to our country. I don`t need any evidence to prove that.

Pretty interesting facts are made available to make our judgement on the most controversial era of Pakistan history. It will be discussed today and always.

What I think from my learning of Bhutto is that though He was controvercial but he made the people aware of their rights and tried to solve the common problems in what he thought was the best way.

And mind that, the solutions that He gave had the mandate of the people as He discussed the same solutions in his election campaign for 1970 elections.

Zeemax sahib,

No doubt ZAB inherited an extremely dififcult situation although some may argue that the situation was self-created. But we will not get into that.

(ZAB inherited a country with half of the assets abruptly seized,)

Mr. Swaminathan Aiyar, editor of the Economic Times has a completely different take on the impact of the forced partition of Pakistan. He feels that Mrs. G reduced Pak`s economic problem and poverty by half with one stroke. He may well be right.

(a flood of Pakistani civil servants etc arriving from E.Pak looking for jobs.)

I am not sure that any country would be worse off for receiving a large number of educated, talented people.

About Land Reforms:

What is the point of doing land reforms if the whole purpose is not to redistribute assets but only to penalise political opponents. It smacks of Putin-Yeltsin kind of crony capitalism. And if I am not mistaken the Bhuttos were and continue to remain the largest landlords in Pakistan with holdings in excess of 25,000 acres or so, right?

Nationalisation of the Economy

It has generally brought bad results, including India. And it is no good saying that it had only targeted the big fish and it was only later that it targeted smaller and medium entreprises as well. The point is when you start nationalising, there is no knowing where you may end.

No point in destroying the capitalist-trader- entrepreneur class. By and large experiences would seem to indicate that nations which have encouraged these classes have had best results in terms of material progress. Of course, I am no economist and I would love to have your views on the subject.

Regards

Majumdar,

ZAB inherited a country with half of the assets abruptly seized, 90,000 POWs, 1200 KMs of territory under occupation, a flood of Pakistani civil servants etc arriving from E.Pak looking for jobs. Despite that, the average growth during 1971-77 was about 4.4%.

I think the following extract from an article titled Growth and stagnation in Pakistan’s Economy by Sushil Khanna fairly sums up what was intended and how it went wrong:

Bhutto’s ‘socialism’ and economic restructuring.

1971 was a traumatic year for Pakistan. The Bhutto regime had to grapple with the break-up of the country and the independence of Bangladesh. The departure of the eastern wing robbed the western wing of a large internal market. Since trade between the two wings constituted about 50 percent of the western wing’s total exports and 20 percent of imports, truncated Pakistan faced an urgent need to find new markets for these products. The economy also faced large external shocks due the fourfold increase in petroleum prices by Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC). Pakistan succeeded in overcoming the twin shocks. Bhutto also tried to accelerate the pace of investment and modernisation and to enlarge the heavy industrial base of the economy. Yet the Bhutto years (1971-77) were characterised by moderate or low growth, and the emergence of the persistent imbalances that continue into the present.

Upon assuming power, Bhutto devalued the rupee and raised the profitability of exports at a time when world markets were experiencing a commodity boom. Exports increased by 40 percent between 1972 and 1974 as Pakistan found new markets for its commodity exports, primarily rice, cotton and sugar. Though the export boom helped to compensate for the loss of the eastern wing’s market, it was not sufficient to meet the increasing import bill. The newly launched moderni-sation drive and the establishment of basic industries, such as steel, increased the demand for imports. While exports doubled from USD 591 million in 1971 to 1141 million in 1977, imports increased fourfold from USD 638 million in 1971 to an astounding 2325 by 1977. This was the genesis of the perennial balance of payments crisis that has confronted Pakistan since.

To bridge the growing deficit in trade and balance of payments, the Bhutto regime was forced to turn to foreign sources. The increasing dependence on external commercial loans led to a sharp increase in Pakistan’s debt burden. This dependence on external debt also points to the Bhutto government’s failure to mobilise domestic resources for investment. Domestic savings could finance only 60 percent of the investment in the economy. Borrowing from international sources to finance the savings-investment gap became imperative.

Yet, Bhutto will be remembered, not so much for the external debt shock, but for the dramatic shift in the economic policies and the campaign to undermine the stranglehold of large business families and feudal landlords. His mass appeal revolved around his articulation of the strong sentiment for economic and social reforms that swept through Pakistan in the late 1960s, when the Ayub Khan regime was crumbling. Bhutto described General Ayub’s economic strategy as “a monstrous economic system of loot and plunder which the regime lauded as free enterprise”.

Support for Bhutto’s reforms came from a wide constituency — the urban middle class, the landless peasantry, workers and, curiously, even landlords. Conservative landlords shared with radical groups a resentment of the nascent bourgeoisie of emerging large industrialists. The landlords were particularly anta-gonistic to the traders who had migrated from India and, by the end of the Ayub era, had emerged as the new industrial elite. Sindhi landlords were important members of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and supported the nationalisation measures that were aimed at the industrialists. However, they were hostile to Bhutto’s land reforms and played an important role in undermining the programme for confiscation of surplus land and its redistribution.

In 1972, the PPP had pushed through land-ceiling legislation to reduce the size of land holdings and to redistribute confiscated surplus land. “We are as much against the ignorant and tyrannical landlord as we are against the robber barons of industry”, Bhutto declared. This legislation restricted ceiling on ownership to 150 acres of irrigated land or 300 acres of unirrigated land. Surplus land was to revert to government without any compensation to the landlords and distributed free to the landless. However, there were numerous exemp-tions. Landowners were allowed to retain an additional 50 acres above the ceiling if they invested in tractors and tube wells. Generous tax exemptions were granted for the purchase of agricultural machinery and land development. These were all incentives for modernising agriculture.

The results were dismal. Given the fact that the ceiling was on individual rather than family ownership, large landowning magnates had little difficulty in retaining control over land through division within family members. The implementation of the reforms was also arbitrary. Landlords hostile to the regime were targeted, while those loyal to PPP were left alone. As a consequence, more and more landlords flocked to the party. The total land seized for redistribution was less than 1 percent in Punjab and 3 percent in Sindh.

The only province where land reforms were effective was the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where it was used to undermine the social base of Bhutto’s political opponents, the National Awami Party (NAP). Balochistan NAP leaders were also targeted. In all, 12 percent of the land in NWFP was redistributed and approximately 33 percent of the landless households received some land, leading to a sharp increase in support for the PPP and a corresponding decline in the NAP’s popularity. Otherwise, by and large the only legacy that Bhutto’s land reforms left behind was one of deceit and vendetta.

The nationalisation of private banks, insurance and large industry faced fewer obstacles. In the first phase, Bhutto targeted basic industries and nationalised 31 industrial units producing capital and intermediate goods which providing about 20 percent of value added in large-scale manufacturing. Most of private units producing consumer goods were left untouched.

The newly nationalised banks redirected credit to landlords, rich peasants and small-scale industrialists. Many of these small industrialists were the more affluent peasants, landlords and small traders. This easy flow of credit to medium and small industrialists restored the private sector’s confidence in the regime to some extent. Bhutto’s PPP argued that its nationalisation was aimed at curbing large monopolies, and was not directed against the private enterprise per se. The government was emphatic that there would be no further nationalisation and that the aim was to foster a mixed economy, with a healthy combination of both the public and private sectors. In addition, former owners of the nationalised units were generously compensated.

However, by late 1973 the atmosphere of co-operation had been vitiated by further nationalisations. Many small and medium units were also taken over by the state. Some observers, such as Omar Noman, argue that this was not the result of a well-defined and systematic strategy of greater state control over the economy, but an ad-hoc response to short-term crises. In 1973, as the price of edible oil trebled due to floods and hoarding, the government nationalised the edible oil industry. In 1976, it nationalised the flourmills, cotton ginning and rice husking, thus antagonising the small and rural petit bourgeoisie. Private sector confidence reached a new low and undermined Bhutto’s strategy of a corporatist state intervention.

As private investment declined, the government’s growth strategy was forced to depend more and more on public investment, which rose sharply from PNR 58 million in 1971 to 1085 million by 1977. Meanwhile private investment declined from PNR 700 million in 1971 to 183 million by 1975. Two-thirds of the industrial investment was now concentrated in the public sector, a significant proportion of which was in the capital goods sector. Thus, the newly set up Pakistan Steel Mill Corporation and a nuclear reprocessing facility became symbols of the regime’s strategy to diversify the industrial base.

The public sector enterprises soon began to run large deficits. They were not allowed to raise prices and were forced to absorb large numbers of workers. The location of these new public enterprises was decided on political considerations. Some of these enterprises were established in the constituencies of PPP leaders. Growing deficit combined with the failure to raise revenue led to increasing gaps in state finances and the destabilisation of the macro-economic balance. By 1974-75, the budget deficit was as high as 10 percent of the GDP.

The external shocks to the economy and nationalisa-tion led to a sharp decline in growth rates. Despite increasing public investment, the growth rates in agriculture and industry fell to a new low. The only redeeming feature was the surge in the tertiary sector, thanks to the expansion in construction, public administration and defence.

The rising trade and budget deficits, along with the rising debt service burden aggravated the balance of payments situation. Pakistan had to negotiate two debt-rescheduling arrangements with the Aid Consortium and the World Bank during the 1972-74 period. The World Bank was critical of the government’s macro-economic policies and stipulated a set of reforms and domestic resource mobilisation targets as a precondition for resuming aid. There was a deadlock as the government refused to accept the advice to curtail its expenditure. Only after a compromise was reached was foreign aid resumed, and during the next few years OPEC emerged as an important and growing source of external assistance. Total foreign assistance reached a new high and by 1975 it had touched USD 1.2 billion.

By 1977, the Bhutto regime had alienated itself from all the three economically dominant classes — the bureaucracy, the rising bourgeoisie and the landlords. The latter were particularly aggrieved by the nationali-sation of agro-processing industries such as cotton ginning, rice husking and flourmills in which they had invested. The PPP’s base among the subordinate classes was also alienated after the purge of left wing elements and the party’s gradual shift to the right under the World Bank programme. A confrontation with the opposition, encouraged by the armed forces, led to a military takeover in 1977.

Tarbela Dam.
The Bhutto government’s economic strategy exposed fundamental weaknesses in the Pakistan economy. The low savings rate and the state’s inability to mobilise resources for investment have persisted to this day. The narrow export basket and the failure of the import substitution strategy had made the trade gap unsustainable, while the anti-private sector bias of the regime drew hostility from international donors. Increasing aid from the OPEC partly mitigated the effects of the crises. But this reliance on foreign aid was to pose new problems in the coming decades.

The failure of Bhutto’s economic and political programme served to undermine the radical and left groups that had fought hard to establish a modern and more equitable economic and social sector in Pakistan. The collapse of this alliance of radical urban intelli-gentsia, workers, rural tenants and landless led to the consolidation of more conservative social groups under Gen Zia-ul Haq.

#27 by zeemax

If a Govt had been formed, Mujib alongwith his six points would have been in power in both West & East Pak, not ZAB. So your question is severely flawed.

I`m not saying ZAB should have conceded Mujib`s demands. What I`m saying is that he should have at least shown willingness to arrive at some compromise and attempted to address the genuine E.Pak grievances. His instrasigence only fuelled further resentment in E.Pak and allowed Mujib to exploit the circumstances.

#25 by harish_hyd

...why was that he didn`t use the advantage that his unique position conferred upon him to heal the rift?

What unique position? If a Govt had been formed, Mujib alongwith his six points would have been in power in both West & East Pak, not ZAB. So your question is severely flawed. That`s why ZAB had preferred to have two assemblies rather than one because the six points would have not only split East and West, but the West as well into several parts.

However, there had in fact been massive policy changes to address the E.Pak grievances in a meaningful manner during 1970 which included shifting head-offices of some major Govt developmental organisations to Dacca, and introduction of Bangla language news and other programs on PTV to foster kinship. As it was, these turned out to be too little/too late.

Zeemax sahib,

No, the language issue was not ZAB`s fault. But had he allowed Mujib to form the govt. he could have done something for democracy in Pakistan. And maybe some solution could have been found to the language issue. Important thing is that democratic processes were never given a chance. Tragically we will never know what could have been achieved.

And let me tell u the situation in Pak was not all that dissimilar to the situation in India. There was at one point of time (in 1960s and 70s) failry strong anti-Hindi feelings in South India particularly TN. In the 1977 elections (post emergency dictatorship very similar to 1970 election) there was a stark divide in the political landscape. The opposition Janata Party (JP) won 295 seats, the Congress only 158 but interesttingly north Of the Vindhyas almost each and every seat went to JP, while Congress swept all but 2 or 3 seats south of the Vindhyas (if my memory serves me right). But nowehere was it suggested that JP was disqulaified from forming the govt. bcos it had only 2-3 seats south oif the Vindhyas.

(he `may` have moderated his demands as you say AFTER he was in power?)

The experience in India does suggest that govts/personalities often moderate their demands once they are faced with the practicality of the government.

Right, let`s move to the next topic.

Regards,

PS: Irrespective of whether I agree with u or not, it is always a pleasure interacting with u. May God be with u.

#24 by zeemax

As ZAB himself points out in one of his quotations here, the rift went back to 50s over the language issue. Was that ZABs fault?

But as someone who had the overwhelming backing of Pakistan to the point of being an absolute emperor, the pertinent question would be: why was that he didn`t use the advantage that his unique position conferred upon him to heal the rift? With one stroke of the pen, he could reduce Ahmadis to being second class citizens, why couldn`t he do better with E.Pakistan?

#21 by majumdar

You have two arguments here:

Why did things come to such a pass that the Six Points Programme had to be put up in the first place.

As ZAB himself points out in one of his quotations here, the rift went back to 50s over the language issue. Was that ZABs fault?

Mujib ... once in power he may have moderated his demands.

This is a curious argument since if Mujib wasn`t willing to move an inch BEFORE and IN ORDER to get in power, what reason is there is to believe he `may` have moderated his demands as you say AFTER he was in power? Are there any grounds to support that?

Let`s continue ... we`ll move to the economy next ... !

#22 by majumdar

Welcome on the post. Noticed that u joined in just after Manto mian did.

What surprises me is that Yasser immediately launches into Alephnull, but is curiously silent on the subject of this article, the man who is responsible for the miseries of the community into which Yasser was born.