In chronological order:
Liaqat Ali Khan: The objectives resolution is what enabled future rulers to go through with the Islamization of Pakistan and a disgraceful framework to base your constitution on. The first major Pakistani leader to get in bed with the religious right.
Bhutto: The man who truly started the Islamization of Pakistan in earnest, undid most of the economic progress made up to the point where he became PM and, his most grievous sin in my book, revived the army when it was completely down and out following the whipping in 1971. He was the last Pakistani leader who was in a position to put the army in its place but instead he let his personal ambitions dictate his actions and he ended up reviving the army to it's former power. Poetic justice at it's finest when the army later turned on him. Had he gone about things the right way, the Zia and Musharraf dictatorships would not have existed.
Zia: The absolute worst, bar none. No one has done as much damage to this country as him. It was he who put in place policies that made extremism the norm in Pakistan as opposed to a fringe phenomenon. He is the father of the Taliban generation(Pakistani millenials). The man, along with what is now JI, had more of a role in shaping Pakistan in its current form than any leader past or future and it would not at all be wrong to say that he is the true father of the nation since the Pakistan Jinnah created was killed in its infancy by Liaqat in 1949 when the objectives resolution was passed. The Pakistan we live in today, is very much the fruit of Zia's labor.
There hasnt been a decent leader since Jinnah but given how grievous the sins of these three are, none of others merit a mention in the same list as them since they're all minnows compared to them.
Spot on! Agree with you 100%, was about to write the exact same thing, apart from the part about Zia being the worst. He was terrible but not the worst, the worst is reserved for Bhutto.
Zia's Islamisation is responsible for most things terrible in Pakistan, but we have to look at the time during which the Islamisation took place. Iran also went through Islamisation after the revolution but they aren't like us. The place where we imported our wahabi extremism from, Saudi Arabia, is a lot more stringent and backwards than us in terms of laws.
The reason these countries don't have the issues we do is that they are rich in oil. Economics is the most important factor in the sustenance of a country in the modern age. If Pakistan was economically prosperous, Islamisation wouldn't have taken a turn for the worst like it has.
Bhutto's nationalisation took the country back decades, all the aid-induced development of the past decade was laid to waste. Bhutto was a great foreign minister, diplomat, lawyer, and politician. He gave our people the symbol of a reincarnation of a messiah figure like Jinnah, who would pull a rabbit out of a hat and fix all our ills. But, he did not understand economics.
Bloody hell his 3 Finance Minister appointments were an engineer, and 2 barristers. He studied international relations and law, he did not grasp the basic concepts of economics even though he had a brilliant mind. He thought simply because someone like Ayub could take the country to economic prosperity anyone could. He'd promised the people roti, kapra, makan, but had no idea how to deliver it to the people. The end result was nationalisation at a time when we just lost our colony in East Pakistan, on which we relied upon for a massive chunk of our exports. There could actually have been no worse time for his disastrous economic policy.
Bhutto was no champion of democracy either. He happily served under Ayub till he was sacked. Refused to accept the 1970 elections and played a role in egging on Yayha to not accept Mujib. Later, he ruled as a dictator himself. He is the one who sparked this wave of Islamisation. He allowed the liberal upper and upper-middle class to engage in what the moderate middle and lower classes, the bulk of the country, saw as filth and debauchery. This is what empowered the religious right to comeback to the fore and make demands to which he gladly accepted to consolidate and preserve his own power. He made the imbecile Zia chief of the army, he rigged an election he would have won anyways, he left this country in tatters.
If the Islamisation Zia brought took place after Ayub or Yayha, things wouldn't have been as bad as they are. Zia was terrible but the man who appointed him superseding so many others, and after the events of Black September, must be seen as the absolute worse.
I could be mistake though
