Pakistan’s Economy as Envisaged by the Quaid-e-Azam

Though preoccupied with constitutional, political and organizational issues the Quaid-e-Azam gave clear indications of how he envisaged Pakistan’s economy. When put together, his views on the economy make a coherent pro-poor economic program with a vision, a strategy and policy guidelines for the uplift of the poor people that have much current relevance.
The Quaid’s main concern were the poor people and not the nobility and landed elite on whom he relied for the struggle for Pakistan. He emphasized “equality and brotherhood of man … and equal opportunities for all.” That is also how he understood the struggle for Pakistan as the uplift of the poor people. On March 26, 1948 in Chittagong he said: “we fought for Pakistan because there was a danger of denial of these human rights in this sub-continent.” Therefore, he said: “You are only voicing my sentiments and the sentiments of millions of Musalmans when you say that Pakistan should be based on the sure foundation of justice and Islamic socialism.”
The Quaid’s foremost concern for the poor people is reflected in his speech to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947 in which he described his vision of a “happy and prosperous” Pakistan. And said that to achieve this, it is important to “wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor.”
The Quaid believed that the foremost duty of the government, as “of every civilized government” is to “educate the masses” (from his speech before the Viceroy’s Council in 1911). He condemned the ruthless exploitation of the working people. He rejected the Western economic theory and system. He favored an industrial policy to “decrease our dependence on the outside world for necessities… give more employment to our people and …increase the resources of the state,” while reserving a key role for individual initiative, but with “essential key industries (including public utilities)…controlled and managed by the State.” The Quaid’s latter view is at odds with the “principled ideology” of the Privatization Commission that “the government has no business being in business” (as declared on its website)!
The Quaid’s focus on uplifting the poor people could not have been welcomed by landlords and capitalists who depend on exploiting the working people. Exploitation of the working people was ruthless. According to S.M.Akhtar, more than three fifths of the peasants’ harvest and often ninety percent was taken by the landlords on various pretexts. The tenants were practically slaves of the money-lending landlords. The Quaid was compelled to say at the All-India Muslim League Council on April 24, 1943: “Here I should like to give a warning to the landlords and capitalists who have flourished at our expense by a system which makes them so selfish that it is difficult to reason with them. The exploitation of working people has gone into their blood.”
About his rich associates the Quaid advised Governor Mudie thus: “wash your hands of them, as I am going to do.” Meanwhile, the Quaid encouraged Mian Iftikharuddin to publish the Pakistan Times which became a vehicle for progressive views in Pakistan until it was strangled by Gen Ayub Khan
What followed after the Quaid is the nemesis of the Quaid’s vision of Pakistan—a setup for cronyism, a system of the rich, by the rich and for the rich with unbridled militarism that drains our fiscal resources and cripples essential public functions. The situation is well described in a study by Callard published in 1957: “Jagirdars and Zamindars, Pirs and Mirs, Makhdooms, Khans and Nawabs retain vast political influence,” which is as true now as then. “A small, well-defined group of men monopolized political office throughout the country.”
Quickly forgotten by this ‘group of men’ were the Quaid’s alluring promises to the poor people of emancipation. An Act was even passed in 1950 in Punjab to eject a tenant if “he is guilty of reading out at a public or private meeting the Punjab Muslim League Manifesto of 1944,” which advocated land reforms.
According to the Land Reforms Commission report of 1959 over six thousand landlords had acquired more land than 3.3 million peasant households and about a hundred Jagirdars of Sind owned 1.1 million acres. By means mostly foul, they grabbed even more land from impoverished peasants and the land abandoned by the Hindus, including 800 thousand acres of over 1.3 million acres in Sind that were intended for distribution to destitute refugees from India, one acre per person.
The capitalists acquired more capital: 49 percent shares of the State Bank were distributed to them, the tax on super profits was reduced, a public corporation was setup to provide finance to them, and in 1952 the PIDC was setup by the government that constructed industrial enterprises and handed them over to the businessmen.
Meanwhile the exploitation of workers worsened. Even the colonial Factory Act 1934 was ignored and 10-12 hour working days were routine. As a result, the Pakistan Times reported on August 14, 1950 that over two hundred thousand workers died yearly from tb and 125,000 from malaria. Sixty five percent of workers’ children had tb and 90 percent had rickets.
Instead of concentrating on the well-being of the poor as directed by the Quaid, dictators from Ayub to Zia to Musharraf imposed a western free market system, which has nothing to do with uplifting the poor but everything to do with imposing a harsh, unequal and less democratic society. And this, despite the Quaid’s warning on July 1, 1948 at the opening ceremony of the State Bank: “The adoption of Western economic theory and practice will not help us in achieving our goal of creating a happy and contented people. It has failed to do justice… It is largely responsible for the two world wars.”
Yet, the free market approach that hails unemployment as part of the law of supply and demand has several devotees in the country: “If the birth rate is high,” argued one Lahore-based English newspaper in May, “the economy will lag behind in education… unskilled workers are cheap and unprotected because of excess supply.” Such approach contradicts the Quaid’s fundamental principle of equal opportunities for all. Starvation is not a legitimate weapon to use against labor. Poverty and inequality rationalized as inevitable by-products of the rule of supply and demand—are not inevitable at all!
Political choices, in particular, consciously adopted pro-rich economic policies, not economic laws, led us away from an egalitarian economy. They worsened inequality leaving millions of poor people suffering hunger and malnutrition. When there are “millions upon millions of our people who hardly get one meal a day,” the Quaid asked the All India Muslim League session on April 24, 1943: “Is this civilization? Is this the aim of Pakistan? If this is the idea of Pakistan, I would not have it.”
Revisiting the Quaid’s views on Pakistan’s economy is a reminder of how far we have strayed from his dream of eradicating poverty and class distinctions from the country. It is a reminder of how different things could be without right-wing dictators. It is a reminder that a seismic shift in government strategy and policy to concentrate on the well-being of the poor people is long overdue.