stamps | BAGICHA

Like the previous post, to commemorate the inauguration of the One-Unit in Pakistan, three postage stamps were issued:

1½-anna, bottle green.
2-anna, dark brown.
12-anna, deep red.

The picture above is a first day cover issued on 7 December 1955, with a 1 ½ anna stamp which I just happened to came across during my stroll at the book fair on The Mall, Lahore which is held on Sundays.

One of the biggest challenges facing Pakistan after independence was maintaining the links between the two wings. This led to wider constitutional issues and so even after eight years of existence Pakistan did not have a constitution; it was still operating on colonial laws. Moreover, the two wings were divided by more a thousand (hostile Indian) miles. This of course would present challenges to the most stable of regimes and this is just a nascent nation trying to carve out a post colonial identity.

To bridge the multiple gaps between the two wings, the Government of Pakistan under Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra, decided that all four of the provinces in West Pakistan should be merged to constitute one-unit against East Pakistan. This would in effect mean that Bengalis, Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, Balochis would cease to have their regional identity and adhere to a yet another artificial political construct designed to posit the two wings against each other.

While geographically these two vast areas are split into two units, ethnic, religious and linguistic differences remained despite the political rationalization that was being put forward. Furthermore, while Urdu and Bengali were both accepted as state languages, English, the language of the colonial power and spoken a small minority of people, remained the official language of Pakistan. There was of course inevitably resistance from the four provinces who were being asked to relinquish their regional identity in a direct counter-measure against increased Bengali nationalism.

The uneasy relationship between the linguistic and ethnic differences encapsulated in the two wings of Pakistan created a divide which was difficult to resolve by the time the first general election was held at the end of 1970. In reality the longer-term impact of the one-unit was to create further division rather than bringing coherence and rationalization to the administrative landscape in Pakistan.

national-assembly-pakistan

To commemorate the first session at Dacca, East Pakistan, of the National Assembly of Pakistan, three postage stamps were issued on and from the 15th October 1956:—

1½-anna, bottle green
2-anna, dark brown
12-anna, deep red

The picture above is the first day cover with a 1 ½ anna stamp. I just came across it during a stroll at the book fair on The Mall, Lahore which is held on Sundays. The commemorative stamp was issued on the eve of Pakistan becoming the first Islamic Republic in the world. At the time Pakistan was made up of two wings, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan. The National Assembly of Pakistan is the lower house of parliament and initially met in the capital Karachi. However, this was the first session of the National Assembly in Dacca and in fact the last time as well because two years later Ayub Khan became the first military dictator in Pakistan and eventually by the 1971, the country was on the brink of splitting up.

The stamp encapsulates the period when Pakistan ended its status as a dominion and was declared an Islamic Republic of Pakistan on 23 March. Hence this is day is celebrated as Republic Day in Pakistan. This of course is also the same day that Mohammad Ali Jinnah adopted the Pakistan Resolution (Lahore Resolution) outlining the two-nation theory. The full text of the 1940 Resolution is available via: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_jinnah_lahore_1940.html.

The Constituent Assembly became the interim National Assembly with Governor General Iskander Mirza as the first President of Pakistan. The Assembly had 80 members, half each from East Pakistan and West Pakistan. A turning point in Pakistan’s history, the Constitution required the president to be a Muslim and he (typically it was a he), had the power appoint the Prime Minister and he was also empowered with the ability to remove the Prime Minister, if there was a lack of confidence in his abilities. The Constitution of 1956 was written almost ten years after Pakistan was created, but crucially it set in motion a dangerous precedent; the President had the power to suspend fundamental rights in case of an emergency. Crucially though the Constitution of 1956 was short-lived because by 7 October, 1958, General Mirza dissolved the constitution and declared Martial law in Pakistan.