Pakistan: Time for Change

PAKISTAN Muhammad Anwar and Ebad Baig The creation of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, was a rare and unprecedented event in the study of politics that the world has ever seen. However, the Indian leadership never accepted the creation of Pakistan, and its security remained threatened even after a long period of existence because of the Kashmir dispute, which was left unresolved at the time of the partition of the subcontinent. The worst happened when Pakistan's founding father passed away on September 11, 1948, followed by the assassination of the first prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, on October 16, 1951. The weak and shrewd political leadership eventually paved the way for the military intervention, and Pakistan remained under the dictatorial governments for more than three decades between 1958 and 2008. As a result of the political void, Pakistan was dismembered in December 1971 by the direct Indian military action in East Pakistan while the United States played the role of a spectator. Despite the US duplicity in 1971, Pakistan remained engaged in fighting the US proxy war in Afghanistan since 1979 and was facing the fierce situation in the hands of the terrorists who were expressing their anger and revenge through bomb blasts and suicidal attacks all over the country. This book examines Pakistan's journey through the turbulent waters of the history right from 1947 to 2012, pinpointing what went wrong during the whole passage and those responsible for the disasters that the Pakistani nation has to painfully endure continuously during all these years. This is to allow the military leaders to review and fix the institution burdened with the task of defending the homeland and the political leadership to walk through this mirror for making Pakistan a strong and modern Muslim state in the world in line with the vision of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.