Ethnicity and Political Reform in Pakistan

resident resident Zia ul-Haq's lifting of martial law in Pakistan at the end of 1985 was clearly welcomed by the vast majority of Pakistanis. It ended the third and lengthiest period of direct military rule in the country's little more than forty-year history, voided some of the more oppressive restrictions on the country's civil and political life, and formally set the country once again upon the path toward representative government. It did not excite much optimism about the country's political future, however, in part because the military's exit from government was sharply qualified (President Zia continued to hold the position of chief of army staff) and in even larger part because the civilianized government's political inheritance from its military predecessors consisted in no small measure of perplexing domestic and international problems that threatened to overwhelm it. Perhaps the gravest domestic problem confronting the new government of Prime Minister Mohammed Khan Junejo was severe unrest among the country's ethnic minorities. Never very far beneath the surface of Pakistani politics, this problem was already turning violent in some parts of the countryespecially in the Sind-before martial law ended. It spread and intensified following the lifting of martial law, in some instances resulting in bursts of bloody communal frenzy not witnessed in Pakistan since the Partition riots of 1947. By early 1988, material losses and the toll in lives resulting from this problem had become major political issues. Doubts were increasingly expressed about the benefits to Pakistan of the relatively unfettered competition for political power that had been unleashed in the country. Demands were made for reinstating stricter controls over political activity.' At the same time, fears

Ethnic group · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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