People from East Pakistan resisted Pakistani General. Those who resisted paid with the price of blood. Coup had never gone bloodless in the history of Pakistan politics. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged to death by Zia-ul-Haq - who then consumed the leadership against the wills of the nation. It is on the record, in fact backed by the interview of Zia-ul-Haq in his own words
Bhai Jaan why don't you understand that Zia took over in 1977, and he did not cause the 1971 war.
Regardless of whether you accept ot or not, the reality is that "Democratic" politicians like Bhutto were just as responsible for the split as the Generals, if not more so.
It wasn't a General who said "idher hum udher tum, bhar mei jaao _ ke bachon". It was a politician.
Bhutto was busy cleaning the irreparable mess. Thank to the policy of Ayub Khan, Bhutto was put in the difficult situation.
Please do enlighten me as to how calling the Bengalis "suar ke bache" and telling them to 'go to "bhar" was Bhutto trying to clean the mess.
Even if Bhutto had good intentions, he only made it worse. He put the last nail in the coffin of East-West Pakistan relations.
The Generals you hate so much used the exact same justification for their military operation - they said they were trying to clean up the mess.
I take it you are not familiar with what happened in 1962. I suggest you research on it. Pakistan had opportunity to grab IOK thank to China-India war, but unfortunately, Ayub Khan was busy listening to the orders of Uncle Sam that retreated since Uncle Sam was concerned about India back then - taking heavy beating by China.
I take it you don't know about this little thing called 'the Cold War' that was foing on at the time. No big deal, it was just two nuclear superpowers on opposing sides of several proxy wars and a few direct confrontations.
India was pro-Soviet. Pakistan went the other way, which was the logical thing to do. The Soviets weren't going to abandon India to help Pakistan.
You have no idea about the context you are talking in - you are looking at history from the lens of today. China was not friendly to Pakistan in 1962 as they are today, the alliance started after 1962 as a result of the War. You are talking as if China told Ayub they were going to have a war with India. They didn't. Mobilizing an Army is not as easy as you think, and neither is balancing between the USSR and US.
It was at most a missed opportunity. Pakistan did not "lose IOK". Ayub made a wise decision by improving relations with China after 1962 rather than jumping into a potentially disastrous war unprepared. Would you have prefered Ayub sent troops into the crossfire between India and China? And what if they were massacred? What if the Chinese didnt provide support simply because they were content with taking Aksai-Chin? Then you would just blame Ayub regardless, because everyone is a master at geopolitical manoevering when they have the benefit of hindsight.
What do you think a democratically elected leader would have done in that situation? Case in point, Nawaz Sharif during Kargil. What did he do? He retreated. Even though the Army was making progress, he gave in to foreign pressure. Very rarely do leaders - democratic or otherwise - make the right decisions in such cases.
I suggest you do some research about basic concepts and context before repeating such flawed talking points.
If the economy was in trouble, then how did the economy of Musharraf skyrocketed right after 2001? T
Economy was in trouble before Musharraf. Skyrocketed when he took over. How? Put two and two together, the answer is four.
Keep in mind "skyrocket" is in relative terms. Musharraf wasn't some super economist or magician - he just did a better job when compared to his predecessor.
So basically what is economy that Musharraf skyrocketed other than getting bailed out handsome raids and funding?
At least you can say with PMLN that loan money are directly invested on energy sectors, CPEC, transportation projects and many more.
Clearly you have a short memory - Musharraf built the motorways.
He also laid the foundation for CPEC
http://www.dawn.com/news/27285
Dawn article from 2002:
"GWADAR, March 22: President Gen Pervez Musharraf said on Friday that the future port city of Gwadar would play a key role in the speedy economic development of the whole region."
As for what PMLN has to show, except for a excessively expensive metro bus, apply some of your scepticism to PMLN as well and examine some facts:
https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/amp/405473-pml-n’s-financial-wizardry
Pakistan can survive without US aid, but Generals with no background on economy cannot. It is no coincident why the economy had been left in tatter every times Generals commanded leadership and left for democracy to clean their mess.
Did you actually read any of the links, statistics, etc I posted? If you keep repeating these debunked points like a parrot, I'm just going to keep posting the same links until you read them.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/internationalDevelopment/pdf/WP/WP92.pdf
http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf
http://www.dawn.com/news/695692
It's better to have people with no background in economics acting in national interests than to have thieves who are professional economists doing everything for personal or business interests.
"Let's put the rich bankers in charge!" you say.
Go ask Greece how that's working out for them.
Speak for yourself. I don't entertain the controversial notion that cannot be backed.
With democracy, you will have to accept the votes of the majority even if you or minority don't like it. It is majority that have major say on the democracy, not the minority.
Clearly you have no clue what you are talking about. What can not be backed? The fact that FPTP often leads to minority rule?
Do you know what a First Past the Post voting system is?
First Past the Post means whoever has the most votes wins - REGARDLESS OF WHETHER HE HAS A MAJORITY OR NOT. Example: 2015 UK General Election, the Tories got 36% of the vote but got 50% of the seats. 36% is a minority - 64% of the electorate voted against them.
Another example: 2013 Pakistan General Election - do you think PMLN won a majority of votes? They didn't. They won 32% of the vote. 68% voted against PMLN. Minority rule. I know, coalitions and independents etc factor in as well - but by that point the people's direct input is no longer involved.
And that isnt even counting the turnout, i.e how many people who could vote actually voted. And lets not forget the amount of money needed to run a campaign, and the immense influence of wealthy donors and the media over elections.
Anyway, those are just some examples of minority rule within Democracy. Democracy doesn't always mean what you think it does, even the Americans are having problems with their electoral college system giving Trump the presidency when he in fact lost the popular vote by a few million votes.
There is nothing "controversial" about this. Anyone who has half a clue as to how elections work knows and accepts this.
Better alternatives such as Proportional Representation and Single Transferrable vote exist which more or less solve these problems but have their own pros and cons
Look it up:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/single-transferable-vote
The election is the way for the public to show support officially. It is way to put somebody on the map they actually want.
Really? Do you honestly think people can "put somebody on the map" without the media and spending a fortune on campaigning? Sounds good on paper, doesnt work in practice.
After the death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), it was oral election took place which put Abu Bakr (R.A) on the map by the majority votes
This is a very interesting point you have raised. First of all you need to keep in mind that Hazrat Abu Bakr RA was already "on the map" as he was the Holy Prophet's closest companion and friend.
I agree with you that Hazrat Abu Bakr RA was supported by the majority of people. But there was no campaigning, no advertisements, no smearing other candidates, no personal attacks, no gerrymandering, no false promises- he was chosen based on his reputation as a good man with morals and wisdom.
You have just proven my point that you do not need Western-style Democracy for a Government to represent its people. This is exactly what I mean by improving Democracy to suit our needs and values.
We need to get money out of politics. We need to reduce the influence of capitalism on how the country is run - its no coincidence that our PM is a multimillionaire factory owner.
Once government becomes meritocratic and actually represents the people, a military coup will be out of the question. I have already shown you what happens if the people oppose a coup, e.g Turkey recently.
How can you fix democracy when you have Pakistani army who don't want to?
Where do you think the Army comes from? Army is made up of Pakistanis. If a politician started a movement to bring accountability to Pakistani "democracy", and the people of Pakistan supported him, the Army would support it. Or, ideally, they wouldn't get involved.
Does that sound familiar? It should, because that is exactly what happened recently, the Army didnt get involved in IK's populist anti-govt movement.
What do you think the Army's main interest is? It is made up of common Pakistanis, based entirely on and in Pakistan, and exists for the sole purpose of protecting Pakistan. Unlike 'democratic' politics, anyone can join the Army, and can rise through the ranks if they perform well. Of course it has flaws, weaknesses, some corruption. They're humans, after all. But it is the single institution in Pakistan that is based more on Merit than Money.
How long will you keep pretending that it is some sort of evil foreign institution?
But fine, lets have it your way. Lets say we disband the Pakistan Army completely. Dont worry about the nukes, we'll gift them to the PM's daughter on her birthday or something.
What brand of anarchy would you like with your sham democracy, Red, far-right, or pure?
People from East Pakistan resisted Pakistani General. Those who resisted paid with the price of blood
If you really believe that Mukhti Bahini represented the people of East Pakistan, or that some General killed 3 hundred bazzilion people and ate people alive, I can't help you except for telling you to read this post by
@WAJsal
https://defence.pk/threads/rape-of-...rue-story-germaine-greer.426740/#post-8241538
and this article by Sarmila Bose
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115983958114219.html
and do some reasearch aside from reading Indian propaganda.
and years of oppressing people in Balochistan
And now you're straight up quoting Indian propaganda. I'm not going to bother responding to that, it has been debunked countless times. Balochistan is no more oppressed than Wales or Scotland or Vermont. They have some legitimate complaints against the government - everyone does, even Punjabis - but Baloch are some of the most Patriotic people in Pakistan. Indian proxies do not represent Baloch people.
Do you consider CPEC to be oppression?
Anyway, let me just reiterate that I do not want or support martial law - but it is wrong to blame the Army for everything that has gone wrong.
It is also wrong to believe that Democracy is flawless or that we must copy the Western system unquestioningly. Their system is very flawed and not suited to the situation in Pakistan.
Coups happen when people are unhappy with corrupt governments - a military coup can not overthrow a government if it is not corrupt and is supported by the people.
Therefore, we need serious reform in the civilian political system to break out of the -"democracy"-coup-"democracy"- coup cycle.