PDM 53 years ago and today’s alliance against Ayub Khan
News Time
It is not known whether it is a good coincidence that the coalition of opposition parties was formed 53 years ago under the name of Pakistan Democratic Movement. When the name PDM was adopted on September 20, 2020, its leaders had information about the emergence, method of protest and end of the PTM formed on May 1, 1967. The two protest alliances against their respective governments are more than half a century apart. One has become part of history while the other is going to write its own part of history. Two years after the formation of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, the 10-party opposition has come out with an 11-point agenda of political reform. This was the situation facing former President Ayub Khan.
The December 1964 presidential election was marred by allegations of fraud. In early 1967, the National Democratic Front, an alliance of the Council Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islami, Nifaz-e-Islam Party, Awami League and other smaller parties, formed an alliance called the Pakistan Democratic Movement to overthrow the Ayub government. Its eight-point manifesto included demands for political reform and political and financial equality between the two provinces. Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan was given the leadership of this alliance. Mufti Mahmood, the father of the current PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was prominent in the electoral and national politics of the time. They did not become part of this alliance. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, founder of the PDM’s Pakistan People’s Party, was out of the alliance despite being Ayub Khan’s worst opponent. Today, Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan insists on running its own movement outside the opposition alliance. She was a passionate part of the PDM of the past.
It is also interesting to note that Abdul Wali Khan, the founder of the ANP, a party of the present alliance, also stayed away from the alliance of the past. Maulana Abdul Hameed Bhashani, the leader of Wali Khan’s second faction of the National Awami Party at the time, also did not join the PDM due to ideological differences. Balochistan’s nationalist leaders Akhtar Mengal and Mahmood Khan Achakzai are currently struggling from the PTM stage. It is an interesting political fact that their parents, Ataullah Mengal and Samad Achakzai, were not part of the PDM despite being critics of the Ayub government.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has termed the opposition movement as a betrayal of the country and the nation. Government spokesmen contributed to the dictionary of political satire by using new techniques of political satire. A spokesman translated the PDM as ‘Pakistan Destruction Movement’. The opposition of the past had to endure similar lashes of political satire. Abdul Saboor Khan, the Ayub government’s communications minister, called the PDM a “Pakistan Death Moment”.Prime Minister Imran Khan also turns his arson on the opposition. Similarly, Ayub Khan had described his political opponents as playing with fire. When a section of the West Pakistan Awami League distanced itself from the PDM, the ruling Muslim League used political terms about the opposition, such as ‘paper lion’ and ‘living in a glass palace’, which are still on the political front today. Array contains the parties’ favorite phrases. To remove him from power, political opponents of President Ayub put forward an agenda to abolish the One Unit for Political and Financial Equality in East and West Pakistan. But there were differences of opinion among the different ideological parties on many political issues.
According to Ayub’s minister SM Zafar’s book Through the Crisis, PDM leaders former Prime Ministers Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, Maulana Maududi and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan did not fully agree with the demand for the abolition of the One Unit. A similar situation exists today in the opposition coalition. The PPP has a clear and divisive stance on the Senate and by-elections, collective resignations from the Assemblies and the Long March. The Pakistan Democratic Movement is a collection of different ideological parties. Analysts believe that the one-point agenda of Imran Khan’s government’s departure has kept them together. Its leaders are divided over a possible electoral alliance in the future. The two major parties secretly deny this possibility, while the other smaller parties see political benefits in turning this alliance into an electoral alliance. If this situation is compared with the past, an interesting situation emerges. Most of the PDM parties of the time had contested the presidential election against Ayub Khan under the name of Coalition Opposition Parties. According to well-known researcher Rafiq Afzal’s book ‘Political Parties of Pakistan’, the former PDM member parties were competing with each other in the 1970 elections after the fall of the Ayub government.
In the last coalition elections, when a rival emerged, a fledgling party, the People’s Party, defeated them all. Given this example of the past, allies may appear as rivals in the coming elections, but it is not necessary to repeat the 70′s election date. We also have the example of the electoral alliance of the opposition parties in the 1977 elections. After taking a conciliatory stance on contesting the Senate and by-elections, the PDM considers the long march to be a yearning. The term Long March became more popular in Pakistan’s political history in the 1990s. Benazir Bhutto’s announcement of a long march against the Nawaz Sharif government proved decisive. Similarly, Nawaz Sharif organized train marches and protests against the PPP government in the name of Tehreek-e-Nijat. In the PDM movement against the Ayub government, the political tactic of ‘siege’ proved to be popular and effective. The siege strategy in both parts of the country broke the nerves of the Ayub government.
To deal with the protest, the Defense of Pakistan Rules and Section 144 were resorted to. On November 13, 1968, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Wali Khan and other leaders were arrested. Former Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Asghar Khan resigned from the chairmanship of PIA and took the field against Ayub. Examining the political mood and mood of the country, the PDMA announced in January 1969 to launch a political and protest movement called the Democratic Action Committee. Later, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and Wali Khan will also be part of it. No significant administrative hurdle has yet been put in place for the current PDM meetings.
The current opposition coalition’s criticism of the government is aimed at rising inflation. Analysts say rising inflation is a key factor in boosting PDM meetings. The government is more at risk from rising opposition unrest than from opposition protests. It is a good coincidence that inflation was the last straw on the camels back of the Ayub government. In 1966, flour cost Rs. Two years later, it became 100 rupees. On May 26, 1968, no bakery in Karachi made double bread due to the scarcity of flour. The sugar crisis has become a sore point for the current government. In the Ayub government, the price of sugar went up from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 per kg.
Today, some forces, fearful of the end of the political system, seek solutions to political problems in the ‘Grand National Dialogue’. Efforts are also being made in this regard, both covertly and openly. The need for dialogue between all political parties and state institutions for the survival of democracy is being felt at various levels. But Prime Minister Imran Khan does not seem to be backing down from his statement on ending corruption. Despite all the administrative and political difficulties, he has repeatedly stated that he will not issue an NRO. Apparently, on the political scene, there is no possibility of reconciliation and dialogue between the government and the opposition in the near future. Opposition leaders, including Shahbaz Sharif, Khurshid Shah and Khawaja Asif, are behind bars on corruption charges.
This scenario is completely different from the trends of the past. When the students, workers and intellectuals came out against the government of President Ayub, the Ayub government had to move towards a Grand National dialogue. On February 17, 1969, Ayub Khan invited Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan for a meeting. The two sides agreed to hold a round table conference. The government released the arrested opposition leaders. Even if the explosive release of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, who was tried for sedition in the name of Tala conspiracy case, changed the political atmosphere of the country.
Different periods of the Round Table Conference took place from February 27 to March 13. According to Herbert Feldman, author of the book From Crisis to Crisis Pakistan 1962-1969, a detailed analysis of the Ayub regime there was also the failure of MQM parties and leaders. Politics has its own dynamics in which sometimes everything changes and new political realities emerge. Political tendencies and attitudes have their roots in the past. Sometimes the past comes before us in a new way. In the two movements of the past and the present, the pros and cons, the political attitudes, the possibilities and the end are in question. Political traditions and anecdotes pass from one person to another. The fate and fate of the past PDM will surely be in the eyes of the opposition leaders today, but perhaps they are in favor of Ghalib in this regard who said.
