The Pakistan Peoples Party’s struggle against the working classes and progressive nationalist forces, accompanied by its shift to the Right, increasingly transformed the façade of democracy into an authoritarian regime; though its appeasement of the Right seemed to know no bounds, its growing isolation from its roots of support made it vulnerable to the petty bourgeoisie, the Establishment, and imperialist forces unhappy with its foreign and internal policies. At the same time, the era of nationalization was coming to a close, neoliberalism had already taken flight from Chile in 1975, and a new mantra was being propagated by international financial institutions; yet the Pakistan Peoples Party was unable to completely suppress and crush the working classes and the masses in pursuit of neoliberal initiatives, as doing so was beyond its capacity. Therefore, the regime reached a point where high despotic power met low infrastructural power—it had reached the structural limits of its coercive capacity, resulting in an incapacitated authoritarianism marked by social entropy and rendered redundant to the ruling elites. The military was waiting in the wings to complete the unfinished agenda.

The nationalization of agro-based medium-sized enterprises—cotton ginning, rice husking, and flour milling units—on July 17, 1976, bringing around 2,400 units under state control, was considered the last nail in the coffin, as business and trading classes became determined to oust Z. A. Bhutto by financing and strengthening the furious petty bourgeoisie, organized under the Nizam-i-Mustafa movement, which began on March 7, 1977, to demand the implementation of Sharia laws. The nine opposition parties from the Right and Left, including progressive nationalists, also united under the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), and as protests and agitation expanded, creating a political vacuum and unleashing anarchy, the military intervened on July 5, 1977, deposing the regime and seizing power.

After assuming power, General Zia-ul-Haq imposed Martial Law and, as Martial Law Administrator, presented his intervention as necessary, claiming as a ‘soldier of Islam’ that his sole aim was to hold free and fair elections in October and transfer power within 90 days—a promise unfulfilled until his death 11 years later. He placed the 1973 Constitution in abeyance, dissolved the National and Provincial Assemblies, and dismissed the cabinet. Meanwhile, Zia incorporated the Right and extended an olive branch to Pashtun and, to some extent, Baloch leadership while taking relief........

© The Friday Times