Martial Law was imposed in Pakistan on March 26th, 1969. It was brought in by General Yahya Khan. President Ayub graciously made way for his Commander-in-Chief. The main reason for its imposition was to put an immediate end to the student/worker aprising which had embraced the entire country since November 1968. subsidiary but equally important reason was to prevent the return of a civilian government (however, bourgeois-democratic it was) which might begin to question the allocation of money to the Pakistan Army.
In East Pakistan this Martial Law was defied one day after its imposition. Workers refused to go back to work in Khulna and Chittagong; fresh workers came out on strike. In some of the distant villages of North Bengal peasants demonstrated against the army and some of them snatched rifles from the local police. Anti-dictatorship slogans were painted on walls in Chittagong and Dinaspur. Left-wing trade-union leaders have gone underground.
In West Pakistan too, coal-miners in Baluchistan refused to go back to work and the army opened fire killing a few miners, wounding others and arresting the leaders. Some weeks later in a textile factory in Karachi (Valika Textiles) three workers were sacked for no apparent reason. They were utilising a tea-break to drink tea in a nearby cate rather than in the factory canteen. The next day the entire factory was out on strike. The managers called in the army A Colonel arrived with a group of armed soldiers. He ordered them to point their rifles at the workers which they did. Then he warned the workers: "TIl blow this whistle three times. The third time the soldiers have instructions to open you return to work." The fire unless whistle was blown thrice, but the workers stood still. The Colonel began to sweat. "That was simply a rehearsal. This time we mean business". . A few of the leading workers took off their vests and bared their chests to the soldiers. One of them told the Colonel: "We'll save you the trouble of whistling. Here shoot us in the chest and kill us, but we won't return to work until our mates are given back their jobs." The colonel began to sweat and ordered the soldiers to retire. He then left and ordered the boss to take the workers back. The next day the workers celebrated this victory. The story spread to other factories like wildfire. Needless to add none of the Pakistani newspapers have printed this. Officially there is no censorship and The Guardian tells us that Yahya Khan is sensitive and sensible.
The existing leadership of the left' political parties is providing no leadership at all to their cadres leave alone the nation at large. Mr. Bhutto is on record as welcoming Martial Law though of late he has been demanding early elections. Maulana Bhashani, after condemning Martial Law in a BBC Panorama interview now seems to have adopted an ambivalent position and after Air Marshal Nur Khan's visit to Peking (where he was warmly welcomed by Chou-en-Lai and hosts of red-book waving Red Guards) seems to be giving support to the regime.
As General Yahya's Martial Law enters its sixth month there is widespread feeling of dissatisfaction in the country. The only sections who are pleased are the owners of capital and the feudal landlords. There is said to be unrest among the junior officers in the army who are demanding that Ayub and his sons be brought on public trial for defrauding the country and that they be shot, if found guilty. The two 'reforms" promulgated by the regime under the aegis of Air Marshal Nur Khan (described by some as a 'socialist in uniform') in the educational and industrial field are insufficient and in the case of education utopian given the country's existing structure. Nur Khan has successful wooed and won many young, "progressive, middle-class intellectuals (eg, Dr. Aynisur Rehman) to advise him on important matters. They are the regime's "whiz kids' and will no doubt one day pay the price for collaborating with a military government. The case of Hamza Alavi is more serious. Hamza known to many on the Left in Britain (a regular contributor to SOCIALIST REGISTER and one-time Director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation) was hardened Marxist. In the early days of the Ayub dictatorship he produced an excellent publication in London called PAKISTAN TODAY. The fact that he has joined the new dictatorship as part of Yahya Khan's 'think-tank' with the rank of Joint Secretary in the Civil Service of Pakistan is an occasion for sadness to all those who knew him.
But despite the 'progressive' facade provided by Nur Khan and his "whiz-kids' and "think-tanks' the new civilian government sworn in by Yahya Khan consists of discredited and reactionary politicans, retired Army men and civil servants. An alliance of feudal landlords, the army and the bureaucracy. It only needed a member of the pro-American Haroon family to be brought in to represent the capitalists Yahya's Martial Law. (Hamza Alavi would have analysed the class structure of The new regime brilliantly.)
Though Yahya is promising elections few believe him. The general feeling is that he will manipulate the politicians to provide an excuse for not having a General Election and will then unilaterally impose a constitution on the country in which the role of the Army will be paramount. The army has however, increased tenfold since Ayub's coup D'etat in 1958 and there has been an influx of petit-bourgeois elements Perhaps it is this which causes the optimists to say that Yahya is another Neguib. To which pessimists could well retort: Maybe but there are no Nassers! The task of socialists inside and outside Pakistan is to organise themselves within the new few years because the options are now limited. Either we organise ourselves or we are destroyed like the Indonesian left. Struggle for a Socialist Pakistan. Educate, Agitate and above all ORGANISE.
Maulana Bhashani - how long will he sit still?.