Pakistan was deprived of both its founding fathers in the first few years of its inception. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah sacrificed his life, because he was suffering from a terminal disease, which he ignored at the peril of his life because it was a race against time. If the detractors of Pakistan had wind of his fragile health, all they had to do was delay the process and there would have been no freedom for the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent. Resultantly, the Quaid barely survived the first year since Pakistan’s independence and most of it he was incapacitated. It befell upon his closest companion and staunch follower Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan to pull Pakistan through those first years of trial. Throughout the struggle for Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan had followed the advice and guidance of the Quaid likewise Mr. Jinnah had been dependant on the steadfast companionship of his most trusted lieutenant Liaquat Ali Khan. However, after the demise of the Quaid, Liaquat Ali Khan was on his own to shape the destiny of the fledgling nation, devoid of the steady hand of Mr. Jinnah on his shoulder.
The challenges that Liaquat Ali Khan faced in the first few years of Pakistan’s inception were so overwhelming that the current predicament faced by the ruling dispensation seem trivial in comparison. In the post natal pains, Pakistan had to host over 12 million refugees from India, who arrived tattered and torn, most of them looted and raped on the way by marauding bands of fanatic Sikhs and Hindus, who also slaughtered a sizable number of refugees on the way. Cash strapped and denuded of resources, Pakistan under the leadership of its first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, welcomed the teeming millions, housing, feeding and sheltering them. India complicated the ordeal by denying handing over Pakistan’s share of the post-partition division of resources. To rub salt in the wound, Indian forces illegally occupied Kashmir forcing the first Indo-Pak war on Kashmir. The British officers who were commanding Pakistan’s armed forces, refused to commit Pakistan’s forces to war or participate in the conflict. Military personnel volunteered to go to war, but despite being deficient in arms and ammunition, the gallant Pakistani forces managed to liberate one third of Kashmir forcing India to ask the UN for ceasefire.
Pakistan’s enemies within and without were numerous. Liaquat Ali Khan was a stumbling block to their heinous machinations. Scrupulously honest, incorruptible, humble, astute statesman and firm disciplinarian Liaquat had numerous friends and admirers but also many detractors who had either personal scores to settle or became pawns of the enemies of Pakistan, who wanted to stifle Pakistan’s growth. On 16 October 1951, Quaid-e-Millat Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, was gunned down by a hired assassin.
Participants:
Amb. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi
Advocate: Tariq Pirzada
Host: S. M. Hali