An Insight into the Early Phase of the Constitutional and Political Development of Pakistan (1947-54)

Abstract

The dominance of the executive wing over the political organ of Pakistan is an endemic phenomenon whose roots might be traced in the very beginning of the country as an independent state. Although M. A. Jinnah was a skilled lawyer blessed with some God-gifted abilities required to comprehend the affairs of the complex socio-political structure of British India mainly dominated by orthodox religious outlook but he too had to exclusively rely upon the civil bureaucracy during the early phase of the country since his colleagues from the political wing remained busy in settling petty political feuds. His immediate deputy, Liaquat Ali Khan, even, had to seek help from PRODA to keep the political and administrative houses in order. The international actors were also keenly interested in the affairs of the country because of its geo-strategic significance. Collectively, these factors paved the way for an unending dominance of civil-military bureaucracy which was trained and skilled by the British Government thus very well-acquainted with the technique of pleasing their real masters. In that background, the instant study analyzes the reasons for the political instability in the early phase of the history of Pakistan and finds that civil-military collaboration remained very much dominant over the political wing which hampered the decision-making process in terms of constitutional and political development of the country. The qualitative method of research is applied to explore the results.