Britain welcomes the President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan (1966)

[KingKhanWC]

Fascinating short documentary.

The President was given a Kings welcome in 1966. Will we ever see such a welcome for a Pakistani head of state again?

 

[Pakistanian]

There's a documentary of the same guy being welcomed in America in the 60s, they had a whole parade for him.

 

[KingKhanWC]

There's a documentary of the same guy being welcomed in America in the 60s, they had a whole parade for him.

Interesting character. He was the first to carry out a coup but apparently did great things for the economy. Seen as a dictator, its strange he was given such welcomes in the UK and US.

 

[Varun]

Interesting character. He was the first to carry out a coup but apparently did great things for ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶c̶o̶n̶o̶m̶y̶ 22 families.

Edited for accuracy.

 

[troodon]

Looks like Pak President was a liberal guy. Hand shaking wiht females, Pak women wearing Sarees..

He was treated like a true VIP.

 

[Loralai]

Interesting character. He was the first to carry out a coup but apparently did great things for the economy. Seen as a dictator, its strange he was given such welcomes in the UK and US.

Why is it strange? Western powers were happy to bow to dictators who were allied with them esp during the Cold War years, regardless of how these dictators treated their own populations.

Economic growth was lopsided and accumulated amongst the rich in West Pakistan and led to resentment in the East. Also American dollars flowed into West Pakistan (especially the army) the form of aid (common trend during military rule) thus giving only the appearance of economic growth. Lets not forget fiasco of 1965 war and subsequent humiliation of Tashkent happened on his watch too.

He should never be forgiven for veering our young country off the democratic path and for his pathetic treatment of Fatimah Jinnah.

 

[troodon]

Those Pakistani dances in the end, are they traditional Pak dance? Looks similar to Indian traditional dances like Odissi, Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam.

 

[ManFan]

Fatima Jinnah ran against him in the election of 1965.

She “mysteriously” passed away two years later while her biography of her brother, the Quaid, “My Brother” was not published until 1987, thirty-two years after it was supposed to be released.

Why?

Because according to the establishment, it contained “anti-national material”.

Not to mention Mr. Khan staging the tradition of military coups, election rigging, and widespread political murders.

 

[KingKhanWC]

Why is it strange? Western powers were happy to bow to dictators who were allied with them esp during the Cold War years, regardless of how these dictators treated their own populations.

Economic growth was lopsided and accumulated amongst the rich in West Pakistan and led to resentment in the East. Also American dollars flowed into West Pakistan (especially the army) the form of aid (common trend during military rule) thus giving only the appearance of economic growth. Lets not forget fiasco of 1965 war and subsequent humiliation of Tashkent happened on his watch too.

He should never be forgiven for veering our young country off the democratic path and for his pathetic treatment of Fatimah Jinnah.

It's strange looking back now, of course it's no surprise.

I never suggested he was a good person because I dont know but an interesting piece on history.

 

[Greenstorm]

He and Bhutto were far better than the crooks we had after them.

 

[Markhor]

That's a young Tony Benn at 3:36 !

Great footage though Ayub's legacy is tarnished by his treatment of Fatima Jinnah, economic inequality, and the acceleration of East Pakistan's road to independence.

 

[KB]

The Ayub era was of course characterised as the ‘decade of development’. There were the infrastructure projects, particularly those concerned with the construction of dams, the building of a new satellite town, Korangi, and the making of a new capital city, Islamabad. It is an era remembered for its surging economic growth rates and the green revolution which fuelled agricultural output to new levels. The economic performance relied on flows of foreign aid, which financed investment spending and procurement of imports. The regime’s close alignment with the US facilitated such flows. There is consensus amongst economists that without this aid, the impressive economic growth rates would have been impossible. Some of the economic data suggests that income inequality declined in the period, though this is difficult to square with the perceptions that existed at the time of intensifying disparities and escalating tensions. The industrial elite were well protected, pampered even, whilst controls on labour were severe. The green revolution seemed to favour the more well to do farmers, those who at least possessed 50 acres than the poorer ones. It was the ‘middle-class’ farmers who were able to sink private tube wells, purchase tractors, and it was they who could get easier access to high variety seeds, fertiliser and credit. The green revolution did appear to sharpen the differences. Nevertheless, the story is not straight-forward - there is is evidence that wages in rural areas began to rise after 1966 and some evidence that incidence of poverty declined in rural areas. There were multiplier effects of the green revolution, which resulted in an expansion of small towns and growth of small-scale industry.

But the Ayub era was always more than just about development for development sake. It also related to a certain conception of Islam. It was the era that Islamic modernism reached its apogee. In a speech, in 1959, to the ulama of the Deobandi madrasa - Dar al-Ulum Islamiyya - in Tando Allahyar, he asserted, in true modernist style, that Islam was a progressive and dynamic religion, whose spirit had been deadened by the ulama. He stated, that “Every fresh advancement, every invention and every new educational system was suspected as a movement against Islam and that is why fatwahs were pronounced against the leaders of revolutionary movements among Muslims in almost every period of history.” He spoke about the sermons of Friday and claimed “that the majority of these sermons are critical of even minor innovations of modern life merely because they are novel.” For Ayub this was “a great disservice to Islam, that such a noble religion should be represented as inimical to progress.”

Ayub was intent on demonstrating the inherent compatibility of development and progress on one hand and Islam on the other. He did not seek to erase Islam from public life, but like the modernists before him, he believed that Islam, ‘properly’ interpreted “alone provides a natural ideology that can save the soul of humanity from destruction.” The Central Institute of Islamic Research set up by the government in 1960 reflected modernist principles, with the government explaining that the purpose of the institute was “to define Islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner and to emphasise…the basic Islamic ideas of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice” as well as to “interpret the teachings of Islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world.”

For Ayub the state, rather than the ulama or pirs, was central to this vision of Islamic modernism.
The emphasis on development, with benefits being shared in regionally uneven ways, and on a national culture uniting around the universals of Islam being imposed top-down by the state, rather than one embedded in local culture, of course met with resistance. One way to understand this is perhaps thorough the perspective of the arts. In the paintings of Zainul Abedin, an East Pakistani/Bangladeshi artist, art historian Iftikhar Dadi identifies an “abiding concern for the local, the rural, and the folk.” As Dadi notes, Abedin’s “choice of motifs” represented a “pointed bypassing of modernisation, protesting the continued underdevelopment and cultural marginalisation of East Pakistan throughout the 1950s and 1960s.” Rather than being interested in ‘pictures of Muslim glory’ which occupied a central place in the paintings of the celebrated Pakistani artist, Abdur Rahman Chughtai, “Abedin painted rural peasants and bulls emerging as labouring bodies, as heroic figures who are frequently engaged in struggle.”

 

[KingKhanWC]

The Ayub era was of course characterised as the ‘decade of development’. There were the infrastructure projects, particularly those concerned with the construction of dams, the building of a new satellite town, Korangi, and the making of a new capital city, Islamabad. It is an era remembered for its surging economic growth rates and the green revolution which fuelled agricultural output to new levels. The economic performance relied on flows of foreign aid, which financed investment spending and procurement of imports. The regime’s close alignment with the US facilitated such flows. There is consensus amongst economists that without this aid, the impressive economic growth rates would have been impossible. Some of the economic data suggests that income inequality declined in the period, though this is difficult to square with the perceptions that existed at the time of intensifying disparities and escalating tensions. The industrial elite were well protected, pampered even, whilst controls on labour were severe. The green revolution seemed to favour the more well to do farmers, those who at least possessed 50 acres than the poorer ones. It was the ‘middle-class’ farmers who were able to sink private tube wells, purchase tractors, and it was they who could get easier access to high variety seeds, fertiliser and credit. The green revolution did appear to sharpen the differences. Nevertheless, the story is not straight-forward - there is is evidence that wages in rural areas began to rise after 1966 and some evidence that incidence of poverty declined in rural areas. There were multiplier effects of the green revolution, which resulted in an expansion of small towns and growth of small-scale industry.

But the Ayub era was always more than just about development for development sake. It also related to a certain conception of Islam. It was the era that Islamic modernism reached its apogee. In a speech, in 1959, to the ulama of the Deobandi madrasa - Dar al-Ulum Islamiyya - in Tando Allahyar, he asserted, in true modernist style, that Islam was a progressive and dynamic religion, whose spirit had been deadened by the ulama. He stated, that “Every fresh advancement, every invention and every new educational system was suspected as a movement against Islam and that is why fatwahs were pronounced against the leaders of revolutionary movements among Muslims in almost every period of history.” He spoke about the sermons of Friday and claimed “that the majority of these sermons are critical of even minor innovations of modern life merely because they are novel.” For Ayub this was “a great disservice to Islam, that such a noble religion should be represented as inimical to progress.”

Ayub was intent on demonstrating the inherent compatibility of development and progress on one hand and Islam on the other. He did not seek to erase Islam from public life, but like the modernists before him, he believed that Islam, ‘properly’ interpreted “alone provides a natural ideology that can save the soul of humanity from destruction.” The Central Institute of Islamic Research set up by the government in 1960 reflected modernist principles, with the government explaining that the purpose of the institute was “to define Islam in terms of its fundamentals in a rational and liberal manner and to emphasise…the basic Islamic ideas of universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice” as well as to “interpret the teachings of Islam in such a way as to bring out its dynamic character in the context of the intellectual and scientific progress of the modern world.”

For Ayub the state, rather than the ulama or pirs, was central to this vision of Islamic modernism.
The emphasis on development, with benefits being shared in regionally uneven ways, and on a national culture uniting around the universals of Islam being imposed top-down by the state, rather than one embedded in local culture, of course met with resistance. One way to understand this is perhaps thorough the perspective of the arts. In the paintings of Zainul Abedin, an East Pakistani/Bangladeshi artist, art historian Iftikhar Dadi identifies an “abiding concern for the local, the rural, and the folk.” As Dadi notes, Abedin’s “choice of motifs” represented a “pointed bypassing of modernisation, protesting the continued underdevelopment and cultural marginalisation of East Pakistan throughout the 1950s and 1960s.” Rather than being interested in ‘pictures of Muslim glory’ which occupied a central place in the paintings of the celebrated Pakistani artist, Abdur Rahman Chughtai, “Abedin painted rural peasants and bulls emerging as labouring bodies, as heroic figures who are frequently engaged in struggle.”

Great read.

He sounds like he was an intelligent leader but people criticise him for his coup amongst other things.