Anti-government agitation.

Byline: Ahmed Bilal Mehboob

MAULANA Fazlur Rehman's recent Azadi March on Islamabad was not a new phenomenon, as anti-government agitations have been a part of Pakistan's political journey since its inception. The Bengali language movement of 1948 and Karachi students' agitation of 1953 are two early cases of anti-government movements which led to the tragic deaths of a number of students. In contrast to many subsequent anti-government movements, these campaigns were free from religious sentiment.

Read: Marching on the capital - a history

The movement for an Islamic constitution by Islamic scholars like Syed Sulaiman Nadvi led to the adoption of the Objectives Resolution on March 12, 1949. The movement, which gained momentum in January 1951 when 31 Islamic scholars presented a 22-point framework for an Islamic constitution, continued until the Constituent Assembly passed the 1956 constitution.

Another agitation greatly motivated by religious sentiment was the violent anti-Ahmadi movement of 1953 in Lahore, which led to huge loss of life and property and culminated in the first use of martial law on March 6 of that year.

The use of street power has been a part of Pakistan's political journey since its inception.

Students' agitation against a three-year degree course and a highly oppressive university ordinance took the entire country by storm in 1962-63. A number of student leaders were arrested, rusticated from universities or deprived of their degrees; around a dozen student leaders were expelled from Karachi.

A movement against Ayub Khan, which started soon after the Tashkent Declaration was signed in January 1966, gained momentum as his ostensibly strong government was swept away by street agitations across the country in 1968. His successor, Gen Yahya Khan, also faced the same fate after the military defeat in former East Pakistan in 1971.

Popularly elected prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's rule was also challenged by a nationwide agitation immediately after the 1977 election - widely perceived as heavily rigged. The agitation, led by the nine-party Pakistan National Alliance, started as a protest against election irregularities but transformed into a 'Nizam-i-Mustafa' movement evoking strong religious sentiments. Many of the agitators were killed and a larger number of people arrested, ultimately leading to the government's dismissal and imposition of martial law, despite several rounds of negotiations between Bhutto and the PNA.

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