Islamabad: The Struggle for Pakistan's Identity Eman Siddiqui ABSTRACT new nation-state. This paper focuses on how Pakistan attempted to achieve these "The capital of a country is the focus and goals and how successful it was in the center of the people's ambitions and creating this national identity. desires, and it is wrong to put them in an existing city," Pakistan's President The First Capital General Ayub Khan declared the need for In 1947, British India was partitioned on a new capital for a young Pakistan in the basis of religious demographics. This 1958. General Ayub's desire required led to the creation of the sovereign states bringing about greater national unity by of Pakistan and India - the areas with a rejecting a cultural baggage of the past for Muslim majority population became a a new national identity. This premise part of Pakistan whereas Hindu majority disqualified the cities of Karachi, a British areas became a part of an independent colonial legacy, and Lahore, a link to the India. As a result of this partition, Indian past, for becoming the capital of Pakistan at the time was geographically Pakistan. And so, planned between 1959 divided into two parts: the West wing and and 1963, arose Islamabad. Pakistan the East wing. All major cities previously envisioned that the new capital would used as national capitals and provincial assist in bringing East and West Pakistan capitals, such as Bombay, Calcutta, and together by becoming a symbol of New Delhi, were now a part of India. national pride. Thus, the struggle for Thus, Pakistan faced the task of choosing national identity as symbolized in the a capital for itself from a list of cities that creation of Islamabad became closely tied had not functioned as national capitals to the Pakistani national struggle itself - before. The newly-created Pakistan had inherent in both these struggles was a three main urban centers: Lahore and desire to start anew and fresh and the Karachi in West Pakistan and Dhaka in longing to claim what was uniquely its East Pakistan. Despite the economic and own. This led to an attempt to unfold a demographic weight of the East, distinctively national style of architecture Pakistan's government and military were and urbanism which had two largely dominated by the upper classes of undercurrents: a drive to achieve the West. Friction between the two wings modernity and progress as defined by the started in 1952 with the Bengali West; and the zeal for Islam as it was the Language Movement and the Awami driving force behind the creation of this League was pushing for autonomy as the province of Punjab of the newly-created political voice of the Bengali-speaking country (Yakas 2001). population in the 1960s. With such a Karachi, the only remaining choice, was volatile situation in the East, a much smaller than Lahore at the time. But government dominated by the West it was a bustling, port city convenient for decided that the new capital be located in communication and transport between West Pakistan (Yakas 2001). the two 'wings'. Furthermore, it provided ample opportunities for major growth through commercial development and was fast-growing as the center for industrial enterprise in the region. Thus, Karachi became the first capital of Pakistan (Yakas 2001). Karachi's Diminishing Importance Karachi emerged as one of the subcontinent's major cities during colonial times. However, colonialism was also the cause of the city's uncontrollable growth and environmental decline. Figure 1 Map showing East and West Karachi bears the scars of the human Pakistan catastrophe that accompanied the (Source: Suburban Emergency Management Program) partition of British India like no other South Asian city. The partition caused the This left the choice between Lahore and transfer of fifteen million people across Karachi. Lahore, a main cultural center of the newly-drawn borders: one of the the region, had a strong political history largest mass migrations of people ever in connected to pre-partition India: it had history. At least one million died during acted as the capital of Punjab for the this exodus. People who settled into the various Indian empires, including the areas bordering the newly created states Ghaznavids in the 12th century, the were able to integrate into the Mughals in the 16th century, and the communities fairly easily because of the British in the mid-19th and early 20th common culture and traditions. The century. But this regional capital for over situation was much different in Karachi. a thousand years had a close proximity to People fleeing what now became central Pakistan's new rival, India. The inherent India chose Karachi as their destination. distrust of its neighbor prevented In terms of culture and religious Pakistan from picking Lahore as its practices, these people had little or national capital. However, Lahore nothing in common with the people of continued to act as the capital of the 157 Sine!, the province in which Karachi was located. Thus, Karachi's sectarian tensions started early on (Harding 2007). Within a few months of independence, Karachi's population of about 450,000 swelled to over a million inhabitants. It became the center for General Ayub Khan's ambitious industrialization program after his coup d'etat in 1958. This economic expansion led to an ever- 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 19(0 1980 2000 2020 increasing number of immigrants from Figure 2 Trend of Population Growth other parts of the country. The impact of (in millions) in Karachi (Source: Ayub Khan's Green Revolution Wikipedia) technologies also led to the migration of many rural workers to the cities. Karachi, on the other hand, was increasingly With the realization that something had failing to provide adequate and secure to be done soon to improve the situation, housing for a significant proportion of its an authority specifically charged with increasing population. Refugees occupied dealing with the housing crisis was all open spaces including public parks, created in 1951. This new authority was school buildings, and playgrounds. The initially called the Karachi Improvement government of the day was overwhelmed. Trust (KTI) but became the Karachi The housing needs of government Development Authority (KDA) in 1957. officials and civil servants who had KTI developed the Greater Karachi Plan in moved to the new capital put additional collaboration with MRV, a Swedish pressure on the existing infrastructure consultancy firm. The plan aimed to (Harding 2007). create a new administrative center outside Karachi which would be linked to the city by roads. This was to be accompanied by the construction of high- density, ten-storey apartment blocks in the central area of Karachi which would accommodate those who were occupying the central areas. However, the plan remained unimplemented due to a combination of political instability which prevailed in Pakistan until 1958 and because of a lack of funds (Harding 2007). 158 capital from scratch was an unnecessary luxury: Pakistan had its hands full in order to develop its nascent economy and could not afford the creation of a new city. Proponents for the new capital, however, said these arguments did not take into consideration the factor of time - a new town could not be built in a few years and thus, it was possible to prepare the first 5- year-plan in such a way so as to not hurt the country's economy. The proponents also felt that the current situation in Karachi had made the allocation of funds for administrative headquarters compulsory. The government was housed Figure 3 Karachi in the 1950s in old buildings, some not even designed (Source: Pakistani Defense Forum) for this purpose. These buildings were With the growing inability of Karachi to also situated far from each other and so act as the capital because of made the functioning of the overcrowding, sectarian differences, administration inefficient. Creating the political tensions, and its inefficiency to new government buildings in Karachi accommodate the staff and equipment of would have incurred a higher overall cost a central government was the feeling that as well because of the very expensive land the capital was not a place merely to live values. All these factors signaled towards and work. The capital had to symbolize a city designed exclusively for becoming the spirit of the people of the country. capital (Yakas 2001). There was also an understanding that the "A Common Platform" capital city should aid towards the better organization and administration of the When Pakistan's first Martial Law newly created state, represent the will of Administrator and second President the people of the country, and become a General Ayub Khan came into power in symbol of the new state towards which all 1958, he embarked on an ambitious, Pakistanis turn to for unity. All these centrally planned program for the reasons hinted towards the need for a industrialization and modernization of new capital for Pakistan (Yakas 2001). Pakistan. The idea of a new administrative center near Karachi was These aims for the new capital met with abandoned and the Greater Karachi Plan adequate opposition from economic was shelved. Instead he decided that divisions inside and outside the country. there should be an utterly modern and The critics of the idea felt that building a 159 entirely new capital of Pakistan at a site difference in physical, economic, and near the town of Rawalpindi on the social environments between the two Pothwar Plateau (Harding 2007). He 'wings' of the country produced the need asserted: for the creation of national unity on political grounds. This desired political "The capital of a country is the focus and unity demanded the establishment of a the center of the people's ambitions and powerful administration in order to desires, and it is wrong to put them in an slowly decrease the differences and focus existing city.