This document is an introduction to a collection of speeches by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from 1970-1971 as Pakistan was transitioning to democracy. It provides background on Ayub Khan resigning amid chaos and handing power to Yahya Khan, who declared martial law. It then summarizes that despite Yahya Khan's opposition, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party swept polls in West Pakistan due to their message connecting with ordinary people. The introduction sets up that the document contains many of Bhutto's campaign speeches as he worked to educate the people about political and economic reforms, including Islamic Socialism which was part of the vision of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
2. INTRODUCTION
Ayub Khan left as he came—in chaos. He wrote to General Yahya Khan on
March 25, 1969 that he was resigning and asked him to do his constitutional
duty. Under his own Constitution of 1962, Ayub Khan should have addressed
his letter of resignation to the Speaker of the National Assembly. Instead, he
chose to send it to the Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army. General
Yahya Khan took this as a mandate not only to restore law and order but also to
take over the country. He was soon to say that he was wearing four caps, those of
the Commander-in-Chief, the Chief Martial Law Administrator, the Supreme
Commander and the President. The Supreme Court was later to declare that he
was a usurper. But this was too late. He had already brought disaster to Pakistan,
resulting in its dismemberment.
In this third and last volume of Politics of the People, the text of Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto’s speeches literally speak for themselves. They show how he accelerated
the march of the people towards democracy, how he articulated his party’s
electoral manifesto, how he exposed the old-style politicians and frustrated their
attempts to mislead the people once again by presenting themselves either as the
sole interpreters of Islam or as the custodians of the ideology of Pakistan.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s style was new. He presented to the people a programme
that was directly connected with their living conditions. In an idiom they could
understand, he explained to the people the substance of his socio-economic
reforms. He made an issue of Islamic Socialism which Quaid-i-Azam himself had
declared as his programme for the people’s welfare, an issue that had been kept
carefully under the covers by politicians acting as self-appointed custodians of
both Islam and Pakistan’s ideology.
Despite the Yahya regime’s opposition to the Pakistan People’s Party, Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto’s party-men swept the polls in West Pakistan. Because of the
substance and style of the presentation of the party programme, and the fact that
the successful candidates were drawn from all classes, instead of the traditional
feudal or propertied urban classes, the result in effect was a revolution funneled
in through the polls.
This volume contains many of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s campaign speeches. It really
is a volume of record because each branch of the Pakistan People’s Party, which
organised meetings where the Party Chairman spoke, wanted to be properly
represented in Marching Towards Democracy. We have tried to accommodate as
many as possible, fully aware that by so doing we were allowing much repetition
to filter through the editorial sieve. But then this is a book of record. And
repetition for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was necessary because in his case the campaign