Who knows National Awami Party?
How many of you still remember National Awami Party? What is the first thing that pops up in your mind after hearing ‘National Awami Party’?
Is it the “Awami National Party or ANP” of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or the “Awami League” of Sheikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman of East Pakistan which is now called as Bangladesh?
If anyone feels that the National Awami Party that is mentioned in the title of this editorial is the one of the above political parties mentioned, than He/She is absolutely incorrect!
Let me unfold the pages of history and remind you what National Awami Party is, so you may get rid of all the related confusions.
A Brief History about the Party
National Awami Party was the leftist, progressive political party founded in 1957 in Dhaka (Capital of Bangladesh) with the integration of several progressive political parties. It was regarded as the only opposition party to Ayub Khan’s Pro US regime in 1960s and was also believed by some as the front Organization of the Communist Party of Pakistan. It was formally split into two factions at the end of 1967 after mistrust between Maulana Bhashani and Khan Wali Khan.
Party Manifesto and Ideology
National Awami Party never believed Muslim as one Nation instead they believe that Nations are formed on linguistic basics, so provinces must be reorganized on linguistic basis.
The Awami Party urged that the foreign policy of the state must be Non-Aligned and Pakistan should withdraw itself from the SEATO and CENTO agreement.
The party advocated the Confederal structure of the government and held the necessity to give supreme authority to the provinces, only Defense and Foreign Police to be controlled by the Federal government.
It supported the State ideology on the basis of Socialism.
Influence
As mentioned above that the National Awami Party was the only major threat to the brutal regime of Ayub Khan, so in the result the party was outlawed and faced harsh crackdown by the authorities. Hasan Nisar, the NAP office secretary was tortured to death in custody. It was divided in two groups, one sided with China (Bhashani’s NAP) and the other with the USSR (Wali’s NAP).
In the bogus referendum of 1964 Maulana Bhashani supposedly told his supporters to support Ayub Khan in the 1964 elections against the joint opposition nominee Fatima Jinnah.
The party was disbanded by the government twice, initially in 1971 and finally in 1975 and was then restored with the name National Democratic Party, from which in turn was formed the Awami National Party.
Conclusion
National Awami Party was accused of carrying out activities against the State that resulted in facing government’s brutality. Without any doubt they were Anti Islamic party as they believed in Socialist Ideology on the whole. The reason of the complete failure of the National Awami Party was clearly that they tried to implement the system totally opposite to the wishes of the Pakistani people as the people here admired Islam as a complete code of life that is why the majority rejected the concepts, manifesto and Political ideology of National Awami Party.