History of Pakistan allrealityofpakistan

Reality Of Pakistan

History of Pakistan

تاريخ پاكِستان 

The history of Pakistan (Urdu: تاريخ پاكِستان ‎) encompasses the history of the region constituting modern Pakistan. Prior to independence in 1947, the territory of modern Pakistan was a part of the British Indian Empire. Prior to that it was ruled in different periods by local kings and numerous imperial powers. The ancient history of the region comprising present-day Pakistan also includes some of the oldest empires of Indian Subcontinent[1] and some of its major civilizations.[2][3][4][5] By the 18th century the land was incorporated into British India. Pakistan's political history began with the birth of the All India Muslim League in 1906 to protect "Muslim interests, amid neglect and under-representation" and to oppose Congress and growing Indian nationalism in return the British Raj would decide to grant local self-rule. On 29 December 1930, philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal called for an autonomous new state in "northwestern India for Indian Muslims".[6] The League rose to popularity in the late 1930s. Muhammad Ali Jinnah espoused the Two Nation Theory and led the League to adopt the Lahore Resolution[7] of 1940, demanding the formation of independent states in the East and the West of British India. Eventually, a successful movement led by Jinnah resulted in the partition of India and independence from Britain, on 14 August 1947. On 12 March 1949, the second constituent assembly of Pakistan passed the Objectives Resolution which was proposed by the first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, proclaimed that the future constitution of Pakistan would not be modeled entirely on a European pattern, but on the ideology and democratic faith of Islam. The legislative elections in 1954 saw the Awami League coming to power and its leader Huseyn Suhrawardy becoming country's first Bengali Prime minister. Promulgation of Constitution in 1956 lead to Pakistan declaring itself Islamic republic (official name) with the adoption of parliamentary democratic system of government. The constitution transformed the Governor-General of Pakistan into President of Pakistan (as head of state). Subsequently, Iskander Mirza became the first president as well as first Bengali in 1956, but the democratic system was stalled after President Mirza imposed the military coup d'état and appointed Ayub Khan as an enforcer of martial law. Two weeks later, President Mirza was ousted by Ayub Khan; his presidency saw an era of internal instability and a second war with India in 1965. Economic grievances and political disenfranchisement in East Pakistan led to violent political tensions and armed repression, escalating into guerrilla war[8] followed by the third war with India. Pakistan's defeat in the war ultimately led to the secession of East Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh.[9] Democracy again returned which was resumed from 1972 to 1977 under leftist PPP led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, until he was vanquished by General Zia-ul-Haq, who became the country's third military president. Pakistan's banished-secular policies were replaced by the new Islamic Shariah legal code, which increased religious influences on the civil service and the military. With the death of President Zia-ul-Haq in 1988, the new general elections announced the victory of PPP led by Benazir Bhutto who was elevated as the country's first female Prime Minister of Pakistan. Over the next decade, she alternated power with conservative Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML(N)) led by Nawaz Sharif, as the country's political and economic situation becoming worsen. Military tensions in the Kargil conflict[10] with India were followed by a 1999 coup d'état in which General Pervez Musharraf assumed executive powers. Self-appointing himself as President after the resignation of President Rafiq Tarar, Musharraf held nation-wide general elections in 2002 to transfer the executive powers to newly elected Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who was succeeded in the 2004 by Shaukat Aziz. During the election campaign in 2007 following the parliament completing its term on 15 November 2007, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated which resulted in a series of important political developments when left-wing alliance led by PPP. The historic general elections held in 2013 marked the return of PML(N) coming to national prominence with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif assuming the leadership of the country for the third time in the history.

Prehistory

Soanian culture[edit] Main article: Soanian The Soanian is an archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic (ca. 1.9 mya to 125,000 BC), contemporary to the Acheulean. It is named after the Soan Valley in the Sivalik Hills, near modern-day Islamabad/Rawalpindi. In Adiyala and Khasala, about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from Rawalpindi, on the bend of the Soan River hundreds of edged pebble tools were discovered. No human skeletons of this age have yet been found. In the Soan River Gorge many fossil bearing rocks are exposed on the surface. The 14 million year old fossils of gazelle, rhinoceros, crocodile, giraffe and rodents have been found there. Some of these fossils are on display at Pakistan Museum of Natural History.

Mehrgarh period

Mehrgarh, (7000–5500 BCE), on the Kachi Plain of Balochistan, is an important Neolithic site discovered in 1974, with early evidence of farming and herding,[11] and dentistry.[1] Early residents lived in mud brick houses, stored grain in granaries, fashioned tools with copper ore, cultivated barley, wheat, jujubes and dates, and herded sheep, goats and cattle. As the civilization progressed (5500–2600 BCE) residents began to engage in crafts, including flint knapping, tanning, bead production, and metalworking. The site was occupied continuously until 2600 BCE,[12] when climatic changes began to occur. Between 2600 and 2000 BCE, region became more arid and Mehrgarh was abandoned in favour of the Indus Valley,[13] where a new civilization was in the early stages of development.[14]

Indus Valley Civilization.

The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) extending throughout much of what is modern-day Pakistan today. [15] Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilizations of the Old World, and of the three the most widespread,[16] covering an area of 1.25 million km2.[17] It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers of Asia, and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which once coursed through eastern Pakistan.[18] At its peak, the civilization hosted a population of approximately 5 million in hundreds of settlements extending as far as the Arabian Sea, present-day southern and eastern Afghanistan, the tip of southeastern Iran and the Himalayas.[19] Major urban centers were at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa as well as an offshoot called the Kulli culture (2500–2000 BCE) in southern Balochistan, which had similar settlements, pottery and other artifacts. The civilization collapsed around 1700 BCE, though the reasons behind its fall are still unknown. Through the excavation of the Indus cities and analysis of town planning and seals, it has been inferred that the Civilization had high level of sophistication in its town planning, arts, crafts, and trade.[20]

The League gradually became the leading representative body of Indian Muslims. Jinnah became its president in 1916, and negotiated the Lucknow Pact with the Congress leader, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, by which Congress conceded the principle of separate electorates and weighted representation for the Muslim community.[79] However, Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920 when the Congress leader, Mohandas Gandhi, launched a law violating Non-Cooperation Movement against the British, which a temperamentally law abiding barrister Jinnah disapproved of. Jinnah also became convinced that the Congress would renounce its support for separate electorates for Muslims, which indeed it did in 1928. In 1927, the British proposed a constitution for India as recommended by the Simon Commission, but they failed to reconcile all parties. The British then turned the matter over to the League and the Congress, and in 1928 an All-Parties Congress was convened in Delhi. The attempt failed, but two more conferences were held, and at the Bombay conference in May, it was agreed that a small committee should work on the constitution. The prominent Congress leader Motilal Nehru headed the committee, which included two Muslims, Syed Ali Imam and Shoaib Quereshi; Motilal's son, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, was its secretary. The League, however, rejected the committee's report, the so-called Nehru Report, arguing that its proposals gave too little representation (one quarter) to Muslims – the League had demanded at least one-third representation in the legislature. Jinnah announced a "parting of the ways" after reading the report, and relations between the Congress and the League began to sour.

Muslim homeland - "Now or Never"

The general elections held in the United Kingdom had already weakened the leftist Labour Party led by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.[80] Furthermore, the Labour Party's government was already weakened by the outcomes of the World War I, which fueled new hopes for progress towards self-government in British India.[80] In fact, Mohandas K. Gandhi traveled to London to press the idea of "self-government" in British India, and claimed to represent all Indians whilst duly criticized the Muslim League as being sectarian and divisive.[80] After reviewing the report of the Simon Commission, the Indian Congress initiated a massive civil disobedience movement under Gandhi; the Muslim League reserved their opinion on the Simon Report declaring that the report was not final and the matters should decided after consultations with the leaders representing all communities in India.[80] As the leaders of the Indian Congress were jailed and restrained, the Round-table conference was held, but these achieved little, since Gandhi and the League were unable to reach a compromise.[80] Witnessing the events in the Round-table conference, Jinnah had despaired of politics and particularly of getting mainstream parties like the Congress to be sensitive to minority priorities. During this time in 1930, notable writer and poet, Muhammad Iqbal called for a separate and autonomous nation-state, who in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that he felt that a separate Muslim state was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated South Asia.[6][81].

In 1941, it became part of the Muslim League's constitution.[91] However, in early 1941, Sikandar explained to the Punjab Assembly that he did not support the final version of the resolution.[92] The sudden death of Sikandar in 1942 paved the way over the next few years for Jinnah to emerge as the recognised leader of the Muslims of South Asia.[78] In 1943, the Sind Assembly passed a resolution demanding the establishment of a homeland.[93] Talks between Jinnah and Gandhi in 1944 in Bombay failed to achieve agreement and there were no more attempts to reach a single-state solution. The French and British empires had been under tremendous political and military pressure during the World War II, and the speculations of disintegration of their colonial empires was rumored in all over the British India.[citation needed] In North-West Frontier Province, the British military had launched the military expeditions to quelled the armed rebellion. In 1945, the general elections were held which saw the leftist Labour Party forming the government in Britain and many Indians were seeing independence within reach. But, Gandhi and Nehru were not receptive to Jinnah's proposal and were also adamantly opposed to dividing India, since they knew that the Hindus, who saw India as one indivisible entity, would never agree to such a thing.[78] In the Constituent Assembly elections of 1946, the League won 425 out of 496 seats reserved for Muslims (polling 89.2% of total votes) on a policy of creating an independent state of Pakistan, and with an implied threat of secession if this was not granted.[78] By 1946, the British had neither the will, nor the financial resources or military power, to hold India any longer. Political deadlock ensued in the Constituent Assembly, and the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, sent a cabinet mission to India to mediate the situation. When the talks broke down, Attlee appointed Louis Mountbatten as India's last viceroy, to negotiate the independence of Pakistan and India and immediate British withdrawal. Mountbatten, of imperial blood and a world war admiral, handled the problem as a campaign. Ignorant of the complex ground realities in British India,[citation needed] he brought forward the date of transfer of power and told Gandhi and Nehru that if they did not accept division there would be civil war in his opinion[78] and he would rather consider handing over power to individual provinces and the rulers of princely states. This forced the hands of Congress leaders and the "Independence of India Act 1947" provided for the two dominions of Pakistan and India to become independent on the 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively. This result was despite the calls for a third Osmanistan in the early 1940s.

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