In this video on New Wave History, we discuss how Pakistan's military has played a dominant role in shaping the country's political landscape, capitalizing on early internal power struggles.
Dr Ayesha Jalal, in The Struggle for Pakistan, writes that “Pakistan’s domestic dilemmas owed less to the intrinsic cultural diversity and geographical peculiarity of the country and more to how institutional imbalances exacerbated centre-region tensions.”
Following the assassination of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and the mysterious deaths of contenders for the role of Army Chief paved the way for military ascendancy, with General Ayub Khan taking the reins of power in 1958. This coup marked the beginning of a long-term military rule, sidelining democratic institutions.
The military's influence began soon after Independence. Pakistan has never fully recovered from its descent into military dominance. The centralization of authority and deliberate engineering of Pakistan's political landscape set a future precedent that ultimately contributed to Pakistan's dismemberment in 1971.