Ayub Khan and the First Military Rule
After a decade of unstable governments, General Ayub Khan takes power in Pakistan's first coup and presides over a decade of rapid growth and rising inequality.
- The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics — Ayesha Jalal, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2014)
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
- The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan — Aqil Shah, Harvard University Press (2014)
Pakistan’s first decade was turbulent. It took until 1956 to agree a constitution, prime ministers came and went, and Bengalis in the East, the majority of the population, felt dominated by a Punjabi-led army and bureaucracy. In October 1958 President Iskander Mirza declared martial law; within three weeks the army chief, General Ayub Khan, pushed him aside.
- The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics — Ayesha Jalal, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2014)
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
Ayub ruled through a system of indirect “Basic Democracies” and a 1962 constitution that concentrated power in the presidency. His government built dams, backed the Green Revolution in wheat, began building the new capital of Islamabad and signed the Indus Waters Treaty with India in 1960. Growth was fast, but critics complained that wealth was concentrated in “22 families” and that East Pakistan lagged behind.
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
- The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics — Ayesha Jalal, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2014)
In the 1965 presidential election he defeated Fatima Jinnah, the founder’s sister, in a vote widely seen as manipulated. The inconclusive 1965 war with India and mass protests in 1968–69 forced him out in March 1969, handing power to another general, Yahya Khan.
- Pakistan: A New History — Ian Talbot, Hurst (2012)
- The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan — Aqil Shah, Harvard University Press (2014)
Why it matters today
Ayub's coup set a pattern that has never fully gone away: the army stepping in when it judges politicians to have failed. Some older Pakistanis remember the 1960s as a golden decade of growth and order; others remember it as when democracy was first taken from them, and when East Pakistan's grievances hardened.