Uprising in Pakistan by Tariq Ali

Author:Tariq Ali
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.

In Dhaka, however, many ‘revolutionaries’ did take fright at what they referred to as peasant ‘excesses’ and there were constant appeals for calm and quiet in the countryside. While the bourgeoisie was trying to patch up its differences at the meeting in Rawalpindi, the class struggle was accelerating. The gherao movement was also in full swing. Workers laid siege to factories and the management were virtually imprisoned inside. They were not allowed to leave the factory till they had agreed to wage increases which varied from 25 per cent to 100 per cent, depending on how many days the managing director had been deprived of food and water.

In this situation it was obvious to everyone that the government was going to be taken over by the army. One of Ayub’s cabinet ministers had threatened as much at the Round Table Conference. The parties who had refused to attend the DAC–Ayub parleys should have prepared the people for martial law, and called for a general strike to observe an anti–martial law Day throughout the country. There can be little doubt that the strike would have been a massive success.

At this crucial moment, Maulana Bhashani left his political base in East Pakistan and embarked on a tour of the western province. In West Pakistan he visited three cities and made extremely inflammatory speeches, which caused his enemies to say that he was acting in league with the army and deliberately exacerbating the situation to provide an excuse for martial law.

But the conspiracy theory of historical development, despite its petty bourgeois attractions, is usually false. The army had quite clearly made up its mind to ‘save the nation’ once again. While they obviously used some of Bhashani’s statements to scare the West Pakistani middle class, in their minds the matter was settled. It was only a question of preparing the prologue, and the fact that the upsurge seemed to be tailing off did not suit the plans of the generals. Their aim was to put forward a picture of a country on the verge of destruction, and themselves as the saviours. Ayub had used the same method in 1958.

But the developed political consciousness of the masses now called for more elaborate and sophisticated stage management. The game proceeded on two different levels. Ayub was encouraged to go ahead with his Round Table Conference talks with the DAC leaders on 10 March. By this stage he was a complete wreck, mentally, morally and physically. The humiliation of being forced to deal with men some of whom he had considered too insignificant to win over must have been a painful blow. He knew that without the army he was politically dead, and he needed all the encouragement from his pet bureaucrats to continue the charade. The bureaucrats were also desperate to reach some sort of agreement, as they knew that a second martial law would weaken their position vis-à-vis the army; but even they knew that the odds were hopeless.

At the Round Table Conference Ayub

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