Although fighting ends in Kashmir, Pakistan faces …
Years: 1949 - 1949
Although fighting ends in Kashmir, Pakistan faces serious internal problems.
The Muslim League is held responsible for the deterioration of politics and society after independence and is called to answer for its failure to fulfill people's high expectations.
There is a rising level of opposition and frustration, and an increasing use of repressive laws inherited from the British or enacted by Pakistan that include preventive detention and rules prohibiting the gathering of more than five persons.
In 1949, the Public and Representative Office Disqualification Act (PRODA) allows the government to disqualify persons found guilty of "misconduct," a term that acquires a broad definition.
Pakistan's Constituent Assembly is made up of members of the pre-partition Indian Constituent Assembly who represent areas that had gone to Pakistan.
The body's eighty members function as the legislature of Pakistan.
As a constitution-making body, the assembly's only achievement is the Objectives Resolution of March 1949, which specifies that Pakistan will be Islamic, democratic, and federal.
However, the assembly can not reach agreement on how these objectives will take form, raising fears among minorities and concern among East Bengalis.
A liberal statement of constitutional principles is promulgated, but parts of the proposed constitution encounter orthodox Muslim opposition.
On the economic front, Pakistan's trade war with India reaches a crisis in September 1949 when Britain devalues the pound, to which both the Pakistani rupee and the Indian rupee are pegged.
India follows Britain's lead, but Pakistan does not, so India severs trade relations with Pakistan.
Pakistan initiates an industrialization effort based on the processing of domestic agricultural raw materials for the home market and for export.
This leads to the establishment of cotton textile mills (a development that now accounts for a large part of the total employment in industry).
