When 

China and India clashed in 1962 over their border in Ladakh (still disputed today), Pakistan saw a

new ally. In a 1964 thaw, China andPakistan sorted out their own Karakoram border and proposed
a‘Friendship Highway’ over the mountains (a story claims that Ayubdeclined a similar offer by Soviet
Premier Bulganin to build a road through Ishkoman).

Sterner measures were used against the politicians. The PRODA prescribed fifteen years' exclusion from
public office for those found guilty of corruption. The Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO)
authorized special tribunals to try former politicians for "misconduct," an infraction not clearly defined.
Prosecution could be avoided if the accused agreed not to be a candidate for any elective body for a
period of seven years. About 7,000 individuals were "EBDOed." Some people, including Suhrawardy, who
was arrested, fought prosecution.

The Press and Publications Ordinance was amended in 1960 to specify broad conditions under which
newspapers and other publications could be commandeered or closed down. Trade organizations,
unions, and student groups were closely monitored and cautioned to avoid political activity,
and imams (see Glossary) at mosques were warned against including political matters in sermons.

 The Land Reform Commission was set up in 1958, and in 1959 the government imposed a ceiling of 200
hectares of irrigated land and 400 hectares of unirrigated land in the West Wing for a single holding. In
the East Wing, the landholding ceiling was raised from thirty-three hectares to forty-eight hectares
(see Farm Ownership and Land Reform , ch. 3). Landholders retained their dominant positions in the
social hierarchy and their political influence but heeded Ayub Khan's warnings against political
assertiveness. Moreover, some 4 million hectares of land in West Pakistan, much of it in Sindh, was
released for public acquisition between 1959 and 1969 and sold mainly to civil and military officers, thus
creating a new class of farmers having medium-sized holdings. These farms became immensely
important for future agricultural development, but the peasants benefited scarcely at all.

In 1955 a legal commission was set up to suggest reforms of the family and marriage laws. Ayub Khan
examined its report and in 1961 issued the Family Laws Ordinance. Among other things, it restricted
polygyny and "regulated" marriage and divorce, The Export Bonus Vouchers Scheme (1959) and tax
incentives stimulated new industrial entrepreneurs and exporters. Bonus vouchers facilitated access to
foreign exchange for imports of industrial machinery and raw materials. Tax concessions were offered for
investment in less-developed areas. These measures had important consequences in bringing industry to
Punjab and gave rise to a new class of small industrialists.

Yahya Khan & Civil War 

in March 1969 a ill Ayub handed responsibility over to his own commander-in-chief, general Agha
Mohammad Yahya Khan, and resigned. Yahya imposed martial law again and named himself president.
Among his early acts was to end the autonomy of the old princely states of the north – Chitral, Swat, Dir,
Hunza, Nagar and various Baltistan fiefdoms.Political activity was legally resumed in January 1970, the
old separate western Province were resurrected and general elections for a civilian government were
scheduled for December. In the meantime, a cyclone wreaked havoc in East Pakistan and
West Pakistan’s shamefully indifferent response was the last straw for the Bengalis.The elections
turned Pakistan on its head. The charismatic Z A Bhutto and his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won a
majority of West Pakistan seats in the National Assembly, but Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League won
nearly all of East Pakistan’s seats, giving it an overall majority. Even Bhuttorefused to allow the
easterners to from the government. After some futile attempts at compromise, Yahya suspended
the assembly and EastPakistan went on general strike. In March 1971 the army clamped down,Sheikh
Mujib was arrested and civil war broke out.Army cruelty was met by an equally cruel resistance, and
hundreds of thousands died. The Bengalis declared themselves the independent state
ofBangladesh. In November, India, flooded with more than nine millionrefugees, declared war
on Pakistan; hostilities also broke out on the western border. Again Pakistan took a drubbing, and
surrendered within weeks.Bangladesh went its way in January 1972, and Z A Bhutto replacedYahya
Khan as president of a truncated Pakistan. When Bangladeshwas admitted to
the British Commonwealth in the same year, Pakistanwithdrew from that organization.     

The province has significant quantities of copper, chromite and iron, and pockets of antimony and
zinc in the south and gold in the far west. Natural gas was discovered near Sui in 1952, and the
province has been gradually developing its oil and gas projects over the past fifty years.

Because of their headstart in both business and politics, Memons emerged as the most powerful of all the
industrial groups in Pakistan between1947-71 and Sergy Levin claimed that every fourth private factory in
Pakistan in the 1960's belonged to a Memon businessman. Lawrence White ranked Dawood as number
one among the top 22 families and his list included seven Memons among the top 22 and 13 among the
top 42 families in Pakistan

The decline of Memon power can be judged from the fact that in 1970, Haroons had 20 companies in
their fold, Adamjee known as the Jute King had majority shares in 30 companies, Bawany's controlled 20
companies, Valika had 20 companies, Dadabhoys 17, Jaffer Bros 17 and Karim 14 companies.

Today Rangoonwala-Bengali group, Haroon, Jaffer and Karim have one company each listed on KSE and
the number of Memons and their ranking among the top 22 families has drastically gone down as
compared to the 1970's.

n 1971 there were 13 Memons among the top 42 including Adamjee, Dawood, Bawany, Gul Ahmad,
Karim, Rangoonwala, Haroon, Hussain Ibrahim, Ghani, Adam, Dada, Dadabhoy, Hasham but in 1995
their number among the top 45 has been reduced to seven i.e Dawood, Gul Ahmad, Bawany, Al-Noor,
Fecto, Tawakkal and Yunus Bros. Ten of the top Memon Groups from 1970's have disappeared.

Several leading Memons industrialists like Adamjee, Jaffer Bros and Fecto who were in process of setting
up fertilizer factories and tractor plants in the 1970 had to abandon these because of the nationalization
order. Investments by Memons was switched off, as if the leaders of Memon community held a meeting
and decided to invest no more in Pakistan. The only projects of some industrial consequence set up by
the Memons during last 25 years are Poineer Cable by Bawany and Pakistan-Synthetic by the Al-Karam
group.

Memons are finished in Pakistan. They have been wiped out deliberately" maintained Yusuf Haroon, the
top Memon industrialist and first chief minister of Sindh after independance in 1947, in an interview with
the author. He now lives in New York, in a flat overlooking Central Park and has business interests in the
United States.
" Such a waste, all for nothing", he murmured in an incoherent voice while talking about the
feverish movement for independance of Pakistan.
Haroon was bitter with the Punjabi politicians and rulers starting from the Nawab of Kalabagh, Zia-ul-Haq
to Nawaz Sharif who wielded influence in Pakistan at different times as absolute monarchs but failed to
unite the countary because of their chauvinism and narrow mindedness. He believed that the seeds of
discontent against the federation were planted in smaller provinces with the shifting of capital to
Islamabad and claimed that immediately after Pakistan was born and he was appointed chief minister of
Sindh, Quaid-e-Azam asked him to look for a site to shift the capital from Karachi, Liaqat Ali Khan even
visited and favoured a site proposed by him in Baluchistan, about 200 km from Karachi on the Arabian
Coast.