The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

by Declan Walsh

Their fortunes were transformed, in 1977, by the arrival in power of General Zia. Born into a modest, socially conservative family in southern Punjab, Zia rejected the whisky-swilling ways of the aristocratic, pseudo-British officers who had led the army since 1947. ‘I said prayers instead,’ he said. After ousting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in July 1977, the military dictator embarked on an ambitious drive to reshape Pakistani society. Zia introduced a slew of harsh Islamic laws that sought to turn Pakistan away from its roots in the rich cultural soil of South Asia in favour of a harsh, unyielding brand of Islam imported from the sands of Saudi Arabia. Criminals were flogged in public, female television presenters had to cover their heads, and the crime of blasphemy – any perceived insult to the Prophet Muhammad – became a capital offence. In the courts, women became second-class citizens whose testimony was devalued to half the worth of a man’s, which made it impossible to prosecute for rape. Muslim preachers turned up on military bases, giving sermons to officers and rank-and-file alike, and Zia turned for political support to religious parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami – Pakistan’s version of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood – which usually won only a small fraction of the vote.