In February 1956, Prime Minister Chaudhri Mohammad…

In February 1956, Prime Minister Chaudhri Mohammad Ali induces the politicians to agree to a constitution, succeeding in one objective over which his three predecessors had failed.

The lawyer-politicians who led the Pakistan movement used the principles and legal precedents of a nonreligious British parliamentary tradition even while they advanced the idea of Muslim nationhood as an axiom.

Many of them represent a liberal movement in Islam, in which their personal religion is compatible with Western technology and political institutions.

They see the basis for democratic processes and tolerance in the Islamic tradition of ijma (consensus of the community) and ijtihad (the concept of continuing interpretations of Islamic law).

Most of Pakistan's intelligentsia and Westernized elites belong to the group of ijma modernists.
In contrast stand the traditionalist ulama, whose position is a legalistic one based on the unity of religion and politics in Islam.

The ulama asserts that the Quran, the sunna, and the sharia provide the general principles for all aspects of life if correctly interpreted and applied.

The government's duty, therefore, is to recognize the role of the ulama in the interpretation of the law.

Because the ulama and the less-learned mullahs (Muslim clerics) enjoy influence among the masses, especially in urban areas, and because no politician can afford to be denounced as anti-Islamic, none dare publicly to ignore them.

Nevertheless, they are not given powers of legal interpretation.

The lawyer-politicians who make the country's decisions almost without exception prefer the courts and legal institutions they inherited from the British.

Therefore, the fundamentalist movement led by Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the founder and leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami, succeeds only in introducing Islamic principles into the 1956 constitution.

Embodying the Islamic provisions of the "aims and objectives" resolution of 1949, the constitution of 1956 declares Pakistan to be an Islamic republic and contains directives for the establishment of an Islamic state.

A nonjudiciable section called the Directive Principles of State Policy attempts to define ways in which the Islamic way of life and Islamic moral standards can be pursued.

The principles contain injunctions against the consumption of alcohol and the practice of usury.

The constitution also renames the Constituent Assembly the Legislative Assembly and prescribes the use of English for official purposes for 20 years.

The constitution follows the form of the 1935 act, allowing the president far-reaching powers to suspend federal and provincial parliamentary government.

It also includes the "parity formula," by which representation in the National Assembly for East and West Pakistan will be decided on a parity, rather than population, basis.

The national parliament is to comprise one house of 300 members, equally representing East and West.

Ten seats are reserved for women.

The prime minister and Cabinet are to govern according to the will of the parliament, with the president exercising only reserve powers.

Pakistan formally becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations; General Iskander Mirza becomes the first president.

The parliamentary system outlined in the 1956 constitution requires disciplined political parties, which do not exist.

The Muslim League-the one political party that had appeared capable of developing into a national democratic party-continues to decline in prestige.

In West Pakistan, Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province resent the political and economic dominance accorded Punjab and remain hostile to the "One Unit Plan" introduced by the Constituent Assembly the year before.

Khan Sahib, a former premier of the North-West Frontier Province, is invited by the Muslim League to become the chief minister of the new "one unit" of West Pakistan.

Soon after taking office, Khan Sahib is faced with a revolt against his leadership in the Muslim League, but he adroitly turns the tables by forming a new group, the Republican Party, out of dissident Muslim League assemblymen.

In the National Assembly also, members adopt the Republican ticket, and Prime Minister Chaudhri Mohammad Ali, finding himself without a majority, resigns in September 1956.

Suhrawardy forms a coalition cabinet at the center that includes the Awami League and the Republican Party.

For a time, the combination works, but the flimsy consensus of Pakistani politics soon began to dissolve into factionalism, regionalism, and sectarianism.

Suhrawardy is highly respected in East Pakistan, but he has no measurable political strength in West Pakistan.

By taking a strong position in favor of the One Unit Plan, he loses support in Sindh, the North-West Frontier Province, and Balochistan.

Economic conditions remain precarious.

In foreign relations, Pakistan's conflict with India over Kashmir remains unresolved, and Afghanistan continues its agitation for the formation of an autonomous Pashtunistan nation made up of the Pashtun tribespeople along the northwest frontier.