Bureaucratic Politics and the Fall of Ayub Khan

Political development can be equated with human development. To suggest this, however, is to stress human opportunity and freedom and the peculiar political structures which make them possible. The fact that Ayub Khan was preoccupied with the need to forge national unity, preserve the territorial state, and generally maintain law and order explains why he was indifferent to the need for distributive justice.' The arbitrary decisionmaking of Pakistani authorities during the Ayub decade perpetuated perennial forms of social control and negated any real possibility of political progress. In sum, an administrative state was reinforced at the cost of nationbuilding.2 Under Ayub Khan, Pakistan made little progress in organizing a political community that promoted compassion, wisdom, tolerance, and cooperation. Even now, human relations remain at primitive levels, and fear, threats, and punishment sustain what might objectively be described as artificial linkages. This was made glaringly apparent by the tragic secession of East Pakistan. Moreover, the continuing turbulence in Sind, Baluchistan. the Northwest Frontier, and Punjab indicates a perpetuation of this dilemma. Economic development is not synonymous with political development. Under Ayub Khan, Pakistan made striking economic gains; but this progress produced little if any political change. This is not to deny the salience of economic development or to minimize its relationship with, and hence impact on, the political system. Technological change is constantly modifying our relationship with the environment. But does it also alter fundamental political relations

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