In 1947 the abstractly named country, Dominion of Pakistan, was formed. The name was changed to the more appropriate monikerthe Islamic State of Pakistan by the Muslim League political organization. The league was established as a response to a British administration decision in the largest Indian state, the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), that acceded to Hindu demands and made Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, the official language. This aggravated Muslim fears that the Hindu majority would seek to suppress Muslim culture and religion in an independent India. A British official, Sir Percival Griffiths, wrote of "the Muslim belief that their interest must be regarded as completely separate from those of the Hindus, and that no fusion of the two communities was possible."
On October 16, 1951, the initial Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, had been scheduled to make an important announcement in a public meeting of the Muslim City League at Municipal Park, Rawalpindi. Liaquat was shot twice in the chest during that meeting by a man sitting in the audience only fifteen yards away.
On December 27, 2007 former Prime Minister and current leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party was assassinated in Municipal Park, Rawalpindi. In the interim her father, keeping with family and political tradition, managed to get himself hanged in Rawalpindi in 1979.
While Pakistan has employed the technique of political assassination many times in the years between there has been a significant rise since 1987. Coincidentally, 1986 marked my final visit to Karachi. As you can see by the list below, it was a good time to depart the country.
* Meena Keshwar Kamal, (1987), Afghan founder of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
* Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq,(1988), 10-year President of Pakistan and 12-year Chief of Army Staff in a sabotage-induced aircraft crash.
* Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, (1989), militant Islamist, near Peshawar
* Fazle Haq, (1991), former governor of the Northwest Frontier province, Pakistan, from 1978 to 1985
* Iqbal Masih, (1995), 13-year-old anti-child labor activist, in Rakh Baoli
* Siddiq Khan Kanju, (2001), former foreign minister of Pakistan from 1991 to 1993
* Benazir Bhutto, (2007), former Prime Minister of Pakistan, by unknown assassins
The British Empire's legacy? Destruction, upheaval, and war.
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