Recent works on Pakistan's post-colonial history by Anatol Lieven (Pakistan: A Hard Country) and Ian Talbot (Pakistan: A New History) have adopted a thematic approach to understand the country's problems of governance, civil-military relations and the threat from Islamic militancy. In their book A Political History of Pakistan, 1947-2007, Vyacheslavn Y Belokrenitsky and Vladimir N Moskalenko favour a straightforward narrative account which blends description with analysis. While Lieven turns to oral sources and Talbot has utilised archival material, the book under review is largely a synthesis of published works. This represents a missed opportunity, especially when considering key moments in Pakistan's history such as the 1965 War and the subsequent Tashkent meeting, when recourse to Russian archives could have provided a potentially fresh insight. But more of this later; what do Belokrenitsky and Moskalenko tell us about Pakistan's political history and its chequered experience with democracy that stands in such contrast to the experience of its Indian neighbour?
Perhaps because of the range of secondary material consulted, the reader is presented with a conventional analysis which emphasises the failure of the first experiment with democracy in the 1950s in terms of political weakness and the creeping militarisation and bureaucratisation which began in the middle of the decade and culminated in Ayub Khan's coup of October 1958. Growing US military and economic assistance in the Cold War context is discussed but the way in which this encouraged the army to develop a group interest is omitted from the narrative. While Ayub, like subsequent coup makers, justified his action in terms of the national interest, the army by this time had developed vested interests as a result of its penetration of Pakistan's economy and society. The coup in 1958 extended this process, giving rise to what some authors have described as a process of 'path dependency'. It was under later Pakistani military leaders, however that the 'Milbus' developed to its greatest extent. (See Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy London:Pluto, 2007).
'Martial races' and the 'democratic deficit'
The military's penetration of the civilian economy and society can be traced to the colonial era. The British rewarded the recruits from the 'martial castes' with large areas of newly irrigated land in the West Punjab. Military contractors emerged as important political players, and the Tiwanas of the Shahpur district were the most influential of all these families. Cantonments were important employers of labourers and markets for local agricultural produce. Indeed the urbanisation of not only Punjab, but other regions in North India owed much to the existence of cantonments.
Belokrenitsky and Moskaleno also sidestep another important colonial historical legacy which impacted adversely on post-independence democratisation. While the reader is made aware that the Muslim League was a 'latecomer' in the future Pakistan areas, its significance for post-colonial state construction is not spelled out, particularly with reference to the injection of factionalism and opportunism into local League branches following the entry of landlord latecomers to the organisation. Despite mythologising in Pakistan of an early 'golden era', in reality there was a continuation of the political culture and behaviour of the late colonial regime in the areas which became Pakistan. This gave rise to the charges of corruption, opportunism and political ill-discipline which successive coup makers provided as a justification for military intervention.