Terms for Pakistan

Asif Zardari

Benazir Bhutto's husband and the current President of Pakistan. He also is the leader of the PPP.

Benazir Bhutto

Prime Minister of Pakistan on two occasions, she was a Western-educated woman who was in favour of secularization. She came to power as a result of making several key relationships with other major government officials, which increased her power and ultimately earned the support of everyone but the MQM. During her first term, Nawaz Sharif created the IJI to defeat her and joined with the MQM to do so. She was eventually dismissed by the President once it was clear she did not have the support to govern. She left the country and eventually came back in 1993 and was re-elected, but again was replaced by Sharif in 1998. Upon her third return in 2007, she is killed by a bomb at a political rally.

MQM + IJI

The combined oppositional parties - the two parties formed an alliance in order to remove Benazir Bhutto from power. They managed to create enough trouble within Pakistan that she was replaced by Sharif, but he was ultimately unable to solve Pakistan's problems and the MQM began to distance itself from the IJI, leading the military to attempt to remove the MQM from Pakistan..

Islamabad Declaration

a declaration which came following a rally held by ul-Qadri and his supporters in Islamabad, it guarantees that elections will be held this year.

Kashmir

a disputed territory between Pakistan, India, and for some reason the PRC. All the countries want to control it due to the natural resources held there; Pakistan in particular wants control over it due to India's policies of withholding natural resources following the partition.

Zia ul-Haq

a general who was appointed by Zulfikar and latter overthrew him once he tried to hang onto power by declaring martial law. He put all political leaders under house arrest and tried them for corruption, ultimately executing several prominent leaders, including Zulfikar. He called for the complete Islamatization of Pakistan and sought to do so by creation a federal Shari 'a court which enforced an Islamic penal code (and created laws against blasphemy, etc). While the people supported Islamatization, ul-Haq went too far and attempted to culturally change the country, declaring many things which were common in daily life illegal (such as the closing of malls, banning alcohol, etc). This led to massive unpopularity and an economic downturn. He ultimately died in a place crash.

All Muslim League

a group formed in India in the 1930s to address the place of Muslims in the country. They did not initially call for the creation of a separate Muslim state, but once they did not make any progress within India they began to call for it as the only solution.

Pakistan People's Party (PPP)

a party created by Zulfikar Bhutto that called for democracy and free elections. Later became the party of his daughter Benazir and now her husband,

Zulfikar Bhutto

founder of the Pakistan People's Party and became Prime Minister in 1972. He initially called for democracy and free elections and was brought to power due to his popularity as a civilian leader, but ended up implementing martial law to maintain control and was overthrown by ul-Haq, who later had him executed. He was one of the major figures who attempted to islamitize Pakistan, as he drafted a constitution which called for law to be in accordance with Islam. Frustration with his rule led to the creation of the MQM.

Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri

he is a Pakistani religious leader who calls for democracy, stability, human rights and justice for women in Pakistan. He returned to Pakistan recently to hold rallies calling for elections, and succeeded; Pakistan will have elections later this year thanks to him.

Creation of a constitution

the creation of Pakistan's constitution was an ongoing process which took several decades to finalize. The country did not have a constitution upon independence and it took until Iskander Mizra in 1956 for the first constitution to be passed. This constitution declared Pakistan as an Islamic Republic, but two years later the constitution became defunct after martial law was declared. After Ayub Khan held a coup in 1958, he created another constitution that formed a highly centralized government, but with no explicit connection to religion outside of the Islamic Republic title. The constitution was again rewritten once Zulfikar Bhutto came to power in 1972. This constitution explicitly called for all laws which were in conflict to Islam to be removed. It was later amended in 1988 by Zia ul-Haq to consolidate power.

The 5 provinces within Pakistan and their dynamics

the five provinces of Pakistan were East Bengal, the Northwest Frontier Province, West Punjab, Sind, and Baluchistan. There was a lot of tension between East Bengal and the rest of Pakistan due to its geographical and political isolation (as well as being populated by a different ethnic group that felt powerless in the Punjabi-elite Pakistan), as well as between the other four due to the conflict between the Punjabis and the muhajireen.

Perwez Musharraf

the head of the Pakistani military that lead a coup in 1999. He forced the exile of several political leaders or made sure they could not run in elections. Under his reign, the war in Afghanistan started, which brought billions in aid to the country in exchange for his plans of democratization. He eventually decided to centralize his power in a constitutional amendment, which he managed to do thanks to weak political opposition. He eventually held elections in 2002 and 2007; his victory in 2007 was controversial and led to protests, leading up to the 2008 elections which the PPP wins. Due to political pressure, Musharraf put himself in exile to London to escape arrest and was replaced as President by Benazir Bhutto's husband. He came back earlier this year looking to run for office again, but instead he just got arrested.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah

the leader of the All Muslim League and Pakistan's first Governor General. While he initially supported unity between the Hindus and Muslims he later advocated for a Muslim country once it became clear a single state was not practical. He was in favour of a secular Pakistani state, rather than an Islamic one.

9/11 and Pakistan

Pakistan benefited greatly from this and the War in Afghanistan as it received billions of dollars in aid from the US in exchange for passage of coalition troops across its border to Afghanistan. This crucial role in the invasion took the focus off of Musharraf's coup and allowed the economy of the country to begin to rebound.

One Unit Scheme

in an attempt to create a sense of cohesiveness between the different ethnic groups of Pakistan, the One Unit Scheme was created to reduce the amount of sub-national units of Pakistan to East and West Pakistan, rather than five different provinces. It also sought to decrease expenditures - instead of having five governments there would only be two - however the plan largely failed due to the distrust between the different groups of Pakistan.

MQM

reasons for creation and desires - the MQM was created out of dissatisfaction with Zulfikar's rule as PM. He had attempted land reforms in the Karachi area by limiting how much land a family could own, but the traditional Punjabi elites found a loophole with his reforms and essentially maintained the status quo. Because they were allowed to do this, the MQM was created by the muhajireen to advocate their causes.

East Pakistan and war of 1971

the war came about after an East Bengal separatist party won the majority of seats in the National Assembly. The Punjabi-dominated government, led by Yahya Khan, resisted the party's rule and began arresting its leaders, leading India to intervene and grant these prisoners political asylum, where they created the provisional government of Bangladesh. India ended up invading East Bengal in 1971 and forced the isolated Pakistani troops there to surrender, essentially liberating the country. Most of the Pakistani troops were held as POWs until India and Pakistan reached an agreement on their return once Zulfikar Bhutto came to power.

Ethnic migration

there were over 100 million Muslims in India when Pakistan was created, and as a result many Muslims migrated to the new country. Roughly 14-20 million Muslims left for Pakistan after it's creation and nearly a million of them died along the way due to violence, religious discord and other mayhem. Within Pakistan, the infrastructure was not capable of handling so many immigrants and ultimately the government was forced to redistribute traditional Punjab lands to make room for the immigrants.

Muhajireen

this is the name given to the Muslims who immigrated to Pakistan following its creation. Opposite the native Punjabis, they settled heavily in the Karachi area.

"Operation clean up"

this was the operation by the Pakistani military meant to remove the influence of the MQM from Pakistan.

Islamatization under Zai ul-Haq

under ul-Haq, religious law was implemented and the concept was enshrined in the Constitution. This led to the banishment of many common activities which harmed the popularity of the reforms despite them having passed with heavy support in a referendum. Ultimately, Islamatization under him failed because he did not have the political or popular support to implement the drastic changes that he was seeking.