TARIQ USES the scalpel of Marxism skilfully to dissect the body of Pakistan. If the state is still clinically alive today, this is mainly because it is kept going by the attachment of a life-maintaining apparatus provided by imperialism and, chiefly, by US imperialism.
The opening chapter of the book i gives a brief but concise nistory or tne Indian sub-continent Moghul Rue rue On emperors, through the period of the British Raj to the division which came with the denarture of the British in 1947.
This gives a clear picture SnOWIll: by deepening the divisions between Hindu Moslem, the British laid the seeds for the eventual rupture.
In India, the powertul capitalist state had an instrument to nand to take over the reins of statepower. Congress had a genuine mass base in the rural urban petty bourgeoisie and a limited following in the working By contrast, JInnah's Muslim League was organization Wild limited mass base 'but strong in the countryside because of the grip which landlords religious mystagogues exercised over the peasantry.' Reviewed by C. van Gelderen In some parts of the the north-west frontier province, Pathan countryside, the League almost unknown. The Punjabi landlords had, until recently, been extremely hostile. further com,000 miles of Indian ter ritorv separated West Pak. istan from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
From the beginning the unstable and unreal nature of Pakistan became manifest: hese contradictions were accentuated by the wind of revolution which General Zia: hailing the army as 'fountain head of inspiration was blowing through Asia. Fearful for their future, the Pakistan rulers turned to Washington for aid. It was aid which did not come without strings.
As an official US document. said "lechnical Assistance is only one of a number of available to carry out (our) foreign policy and to promote (our) national interests abroad. Pakistan was strategically important to the US as a buffer to the Soviet Union in the north and the new threat from Communist China.
The deals graphically with the vorable history recurring crises which have earmarked the decade and a half since Pakistan's bir That seems a neak future for a country which should never have come into bein . The centrifugal forces the different Ilalioll alities will continue the process begun by Bangladesh and tear it apart Real unification and a reunited India will only come in the aftermath of a socialist revolution.
important chapter, headed 'Geo.
In f Super Powers' Tariq deals with LIC SiludEot Afghanistan before after the Soviet invasion and in Iran under the Shah and Khomeini. He shows that, despite Soviet claims, the Red Army Afghanistan, not at the invitation of the Kabul but for reasons of Soviet foreign and strategic policy. Far from rallying the people to armed resistance to the Soviet pupper regimic m Kabul.