Revolution Brewing Speech at Ismailia, Peshawar, October 28, 1968

We are not allowed to use loud speakers at our meetings. In spite of this we try to come to you and present our views. It appears that the Government is afraid of our views. If this was not the case then they should not have put so many hurdles in our way. When they hold their meetings hundreds of buses are brought out from Mardan to Peshawar and large-scale arrangements are made and all sorts of facilities are offered. No doubt they hold big meetings but there is no satisfaction or pleasure in their huge meetings, because they don’t say anything new about the common man. They don’t look towards the poor. They are jealous of us because we ask them to turn their attention away from the capitalists and look at the poor. We say that poverty should end in this country and it can end as has been done in other countries. We know how to do it. The rulers are unaware of the methods to end poverty and can’t bring prosperity to the nation. They can’t serve the laborers. They can’t serve the peasants. They can’t serve the students. They can’t serve low-paid Government servants. They can only serve the capitalists because they themselves are capitalists.

They cannot serve the workers, but they will serve the mill-owners because they are also mill-owners. They will not serve the peasants because they are themselves landlords and don’t cultivate the land. They will not serve low-paid Government servants but they will serve the big officers whose wives are building huge bungalows in Islamabad.

The days of this anti-people Government are numbered. I call upon them to quit immediately because they cannot serve the cause of the country. They are tired now. Let them allow the youth to serve the country. We have principles and we know how to implement them. Our foremost principle is democracy because a dictator is no substitute for the people’s rule. People cannot be suppressed any more by force. The people’s rule can only be restored through democracy. That is why we are struggling for the sake of democracy. Secondly, we want that the country should have the system of Islamic Socialism because only then will there be equality and justice. We have joined the struggle and we know that the people are with us.

This Government says that they will establish a welfare stale. What is this welfare state? In the old days those who played hide and seek with the people used to talk about a welfare state. A welfare state cannot be established in this age. There can be only two systems, either the capitalist system or the socialist system. We want Islamic Socialism. When I talk of Tashkent they start shivering and say that I am divulging Government secrets. What is secret about it? The whole world knows what happened at Tashkent. If I speak against the oppression of the bureaucracy I am accused of speaking against government servants. They defend the bureaucracy because without their support they will not be able to win the elections. The Basic Democracies system is an undemocratic system. They have usurped the rights of the people through this system. This system is the basis of dictatorship. Unless this basis is destroyed the dictator cannot be turned out. So far as the question of contesting the elections is concerned, victory or defeat does not matter to us. Participation in elections is a part of the people’s struggle and is the correct path which we must follow.

There are many good points in the Basic Democracies system. Basic Democracies can be useful for some purposes, but their interference in the elections is wrong. It is through these Basic Democrats that the dictator is strengthened. Now the rulers are preparing for elections and the big capitalists are summoned and told that their salvation lies in the present system. If this system is destroyed the capitalists will lose their hold. So they are asking them to support the present system.

As you are aware a huge meeting is being held at Peshawar on the 10th of this month. People will be brought from Mardan in buses, even by force. I saw a bus driver who told me that the Deputy Commissioner had ordered them to take the people to the meeting because the President. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, is going to address the meeting. They have been threatened that if they do not comply with these orders, their route permits will be withdrawn. Ayub Khan will be presented with a million rupees at this meeting and this money will be used in the elections. Meetings can be held for the President and the people can be taken there by force to hear him talk about their problems. He will advise the ignorant, the sick, the tongawallas and rickshawallas. He will give his diagnosis and say that the whole nation is sick; that we are all patients and that he is our doctor; that he will cure us gradually because previously we had 80,000 Basic Democrats and now we are going to have 1,20,000 of them; because our fever is now a little less, because now we are a little more awake. So they are placing a little more responsibility on our shoulders. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts. We are grateful to them because they have increased the number of Basic Democrats. Ten or twenty years hence they will increase their number a little more.

In this meeting you will be told that the country has progressed a lot. That they have got a certificate from Mr. McNamara. What can Mr. McNamara know of the progress in this country, sitting there in his own country? When he came here he came out in a car with the Finance Minister. How can he know about the plight of our workers and our peasants? The rulers are playing a big fraud on the country. They say that the country has progressed. Where is that progress? Establishing two or three mills and constructing two or three roads is not progress. Progress means improving the condition of the poor people. You know how the poor people are making both ends meet. You know the price of cloth is up. The common man is denied the necessities of life. Wherever we go in the country, even in Karachi, sugar is not available and sometimes even water is not available and they want us to believe that the country has made progress. They cannot end poverty in the country. They cannot end bribery in the country and the bureaucracy is becoming more powerful daily. The Government is controlled by a few Basic Democrats, a few capitalists and a few senior officers.

I want to warn these officers that they are not Ayub’s personal servants. They are servants of the State. Why do they interfere in politics? If they are so fond of politics, they should not do so under the cover of civil service. They should come into the political arena. Let them contest the elections. Why don’t they contest for the Basic Democracies themselves? On the one hand, they call themselves Government servants and want to enjoy the privileges of permanent servants and, on the other, they are interfering in politics. In fact they are interfering in everything. I want to warn them that the present Government which has been there for ten years, against all natural principles, will not last long. All things are mortal. The days of this Government are numbered, and with the help and support of the people, Insha Allah, it will end very soon.

We are told that nobody can fight this Government. It has the machinery of state at its back. If these things could sustain an unjust rule, then the British would have been ruling this subcontinent even today. They had power and wealth. But when the people joined hands against them, when the people rose against them, when the people resolved that they will not tolerate British slavery, the British were turned out in a very short period of time. If they want to make a show of force, why don’t they do so with India? To India they say they are ready for talks; that they want peace; that they do not want to fight; that they can talk about Kashmir. The speech delivered by our Foreign Minister in the United Nations recently carries an appeal to India for holding talks on disputes between India and Pakistan. It has been offered that Indo-Pakistan disputes can be discussed separately or collectively, according to the wishes of the Indian Government. Now, our rulers are prepared to talk to our enemies. But they don’t allow us to say anything on these issues. If we demand democracy we are dubbed as traitors.

If you go to East Pakistan you will be pained to see the conditions there. If you go to Baluchistan you will find hatred against this Government. If you go to Sindh you will find the people restive against this Government. When I came here I saw the same conditions in this area. Wherever you go there is tyranny, repression, unrest and frustration. If you ask the students whether they are happy, they will certainly reply in the negative. The labourers are not happy, and the poor are not happy. Only Ayub Khan is happy. If this is the state of affairs, how can the Government run?

The rulers are not interested in the poor. They are ignorant of the condition of the labourers and of the peasants. They are equally ignorant of the plight of the poor Government servants. To Government servants I say that they should sympathies with the poor people. They should be with the people. We have to struggle against this Government together, because this country is going to the dogs. We don’t know where we will end up. We have to end this dictatorship and bring in democracy. We have to forge a united front through which we have to bring an end to this Government. Only then can we succeed.

I appeal 10 all of you to join the struggle against this Government. Time is slipping by. The opposition must form a united front now. This Government charges us with lust for power. I swear that this is not so. If it were true we would have been in the Government today. It is the present rulers who are addicted to power. They are occupying the chairs of office for the last ten years and now the people hate them. They know that the people want democracy but still they are not prepared to quit. They call us the enemies of the country. Is it because we want democracy? Is it because we want justice? Is it because we want to end bribery? Is it because we want equality? Are they the well-wishers of the country because they have signed the Tashkent Declaration, because they have signed the Indus Basin Treaty, because they have still not recovered Berubari from India, because they want peace with India?

The rulers have concentrated all the wealth and power in their hands. They control the radio, the press and the television. Why are our meetings not shown on television? They did not allow us to hold a meeting in Mardan, so we have to hold the meeting here in Ismailia. They have also not allowed us to hold a public meeting in Peshawar. They don’t like us to talk about 22 families who are looting and misguiding the people. The people can no longer be misled.

The people understand everything. They always understood everything. They are much more conscious than this Government. Don’t regard the people as ignorant. The people are not ignorant because times have changed. The Government is putting hurdles in our way and denying us the right to hold meetings. But as I have announced we will hold a meeting in Peshawar on November 5 whether they enforce Section 144 or not. We must hold this meeting. This night again we will hold a meeting, and I will talk on different subjects. I had made a speech in Hyderabad in last September and the Government became nervous. Governor Musa himself went to Hyderabad and made a speech and levelled false charges against me. That speech was widely publicised in the press, but my reply was not allowed to be published. Only one or two papers published it in a mutilated form. Governor Musa accused me of divulging official secrets.

My dear brothers! I am not so irresponsible. I will not speak on any secret against national interests. If I had intended to create trouble I would have revealed these secrets at the Lahore Railway Station when the people were seething with discontent on the Tashkent issue. I did not utter a single word at that time because I considered it against the interest of the country. They say why did I not say these things at that time? I have given my answer. The forces of the enemy were poised against us on the frontiers. When they were withdrawn, when the times had changed, when three years had elapsed, only then I divulged the secret. And the secret was that when I returned from China, Ayub Khan embraced me and said, “This nation will be ever grateful to you.” This is the only secret which I have divulged and what is so secret about it? Everybody knows why I had been to China. I never disclosed the mode of my travel. I did not disclose the time and date of my travel to China or the object of my visit. So how can I be accused of divulging official secrets? I only wanted to point out that there was a time when Ayub Khan got up from his chair and told me that the nation would be ever grateful to me. It is they who are guilty of divulging official secrets. His own son while speaking in Karachi told the people that Air Marshal Nur Khan accompanied me in the plane. Now this is an official secret which should not have been disclosed. I have done nothing against my oath of secrecy. Ayub Khan worked against his oath of allegiance when he imposed Martial Law. Let them not frighten us with their police. I am only unmasking the rulers and not disclosing official secrets. They are trying to betray the country and when I warn them that we will not allow this and we shall let the people know the atrocities they are committing, they accuse me of disclosing secrets.