Description
Politics in Pakistan – The Nature and Direction of Change By K B Sayeed. The nature and direction of political change in Pakistan has been largely explored and explained in terms of certain major variables emanating from both the external and internal environment. It may be seen that my earlier interpretation of the Pakistan movement presented in Pakistan the Formative Phase ( 1960 and 1968) and The Political System of Pakistan (1967) has been drastically modified in the sense that the earlier works emphasized Muslim nationalism and Jinnah’s charismatic leadership as the two decisive forces, whereas the present work highlights the role of the British colonial regime in shaping and influencing political leadership and the socioeconomic situation that prevailed in Pakistan at the time of its establishment and during its early years. Politics in Pakistan – The Nature and Direction of Change By K B Sayeed. The Ayub regime described in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 was an attempt to strengthen the neocolonial foundations of Pakistan with this slight difference that it was the commander-in-chief supported by the United States who had emerged as the dominant force in the vice,r~l system and in shaping the nature and direction of socioeconomic change. We have characterized the Bhutto regime as a Bonapartist regime, using the term not in the sense of Napoleon Bonaparte but in the sense that Marx uses in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Pakistan’s Bonaparte tried to rise above what he considered the narrow interests of both the landowning groups and other rural classes led by the small peasants, and certain urban forces drawn from the intelligentsia and industrial labor. Politics in Pakistan – The Nature and Direction of Change By K B Sayeed. His attempts were warped by both certain defects in his personality and the kind of political organization that he created. We have explained the role of the petty eoisie supported by certain elements in the military in the overthrow of the Bhutto regime in Chapter 7. The last chapter deals with the social situation that is s.unme,tng but has not reached the boiling point. To the ferment of the socioeconomic forces must be added the external situation in which we have the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan and the U.S. and Saudi attempts to bolster the military regime in Pakistan. Our analysis suggests that certain fundamental changes are afoot. As to when exactly the floodgates manned by the military regime will be forced open by the tidal wave of change we cannot predict. Politics is not an exact science. Politics in Pakistan – The Nature and Direction of Change By K B Sayeed
