Myth of the Punjabi Army: Manpower, Command, and Narrative in Pakistan (1947–1971)
Dr. Masood Tariq
Independent Political Theorist
Karachi, Pakistan
drmasoodtariq@gmail.com
Date: October 5, 2025
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Abstract
This article interrogates the enduring narrative of Pakistan’s military as a “Punjabi Army” during the formative period between 1947 and 1971. While Punjabi villages historically supplied a significant proportion of infantry soldiers, the command structure of the Pakistan Army remained dominated by British officers in the immediate postcolonial years, followed by Pathan and Urdu-speaking Muhajir generals. Until 1972, no Punjabi officer attained the position of Commander-in-Chief. Despite this reality, the political and intellectual elites of the United Provinces and Central Provinces (UP/CP) in India, who migrated to Pakistan in 1947, actively promoted and institutionalised the myth of Punjabi domination to serve their political objectives.
Drawing upon archival sources, secondary literature, and the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report, the study demonstrates that the myth functioned as a political tool: it deflected scrutiny from the UP/CP Ashrafia and the bureaucratic-military nexus in Karachi and Rawalpindi, while scapegoating Punjabis for the failures of the state. The analysis situates this discourse within Pakistan’s broader trajectory of centralisation, militarisation, and eventual collapse in 1971, showing how historical narratives are often constructed to obscure structural realities and perpetuate inter-ethnic tensions.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Ayub Khan and the Militarisation of Pakistan
3. The War of 1965 and Its Consequences
4. Yahya Khan and the Collapse of the Centre
5. The Bangladesh Liberation War
6. The Myth of the Punjabi Army
7. Ethnic Breakdown of Military Command in 1971
8. Synthesis: A Quarter-Century Lost (1947–1971)
9. Conclusion
10. References
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1. Introduction
The historiography of Pakistan has long been dominated by state-centric and military-centric accounts, many of which have framed Punjabis as the primary beneficiaries of independence and the principal force behind the country’s military establishment. This perception crystallised in the label “Punjabi Army,” a term frequently invoked by political leaders, intellectuals, and activists to explain both inter-provincial inequality and the centralisation of the state. Yet, closer examination suggests that this representation is misleading.
Punjabis, while comprising the demographic majority of West Pakistan and supplying the largest share of infantry recruits, did not occupy the highest echelons of command during the first quarter-century of the country’s history. Between 1947 and 1971, the Pakistan Army was led first by British officers—Generals Frank Messervy and Douglas Gracey—and subsequently by Pathan generals, including Ayub Khan, Musa Khan, Yahya Khan, and Gul Hassan Khan. It was not until 1972 that General Tikka Khan became the first Punjabi Chief of Army Staff [Rizvi 1986, 45].
The persistence of the “Punjabi Army” myth can be traced to several political and ideological factors. The Ashrafia of UP and CP, who migrated to Pakistan after Partition, found it politically expedient to present Punjabis as the dominant nation within the state. This not only diverted attention from their own disproportionate control of the bureaucracy and civil institutions but also created a convenient narrative for explaining Pakistan’s repeated failures of governance, federalism, and military adventurism [Lamb 1991, 72]. By 1971, as the state collapsed in East Pakistan, this myth had hardened into an unquestioned dogma.
This article re-examines the foundations of this narrative by situating the discourse of the “Punjabi Army” within Pakistan’s early political development. It begins by analysing Ayub Khan’s rise and the militarisation of the state, then turns to the 1965 war and its uneven regional consequences, before assessing the Yahya regime and the crisis of 1971. A detailed examination of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission’s findings follows, highlighting the ethnic breakdown of command and responsibility. The paper concludes by synthesising these dynamics to argue that the “Punjabi Army” was less a sociological reality than a political construct, weaponised to obscure the role of other actors in Pakistan’s postcolonial trajectory.
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2. Ayub Khan and the Militarisation of Pakistan
The imposition of martial law by General Ayub Khan in 1958 marked a decisive moment in Pakistan’s history. Trained at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and a product of the colonial Indian Army, Ayub exemplified the continuity of British military traditions within the new state. His ascent signified the beginning of military-bureaucratic authoritarianism in Pakistan.
Ayub’s first act was to abrogate the 1956 Constitution, dissolve elected assemblies, and concentrate power in the office of the President. The “Basic Democracies” system that he introduced was presented as a mechanism of grassroots participation, but in practice it operated as a controlled structure that replaced genuine federalism with a façade of local representation [Rizvi 1986, 88].
His decade of rule (1958–69) is often remembered as one of economic development. Industrialisation expanded in Karachi, canal irrigation projects proliferated in Punjab, and infrastructure networks were built across West Pakistan. Yet the distribution of benefits was uneven. Migrant-owned industries, particularly those established by Urdu-speaking entrepreneurs in Karachi, as well as military-linked businesses, captured a disproportionate share of economic growth [Zaidi 1999, 112].
Language policy under Ayub further entrenched centralisation. Urdu was advanced as the sole state language, with Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, and Balochi marginalised in schools, media, and official communication. Bengali was recognised only after the 1952 protests and killings in Dhaka, which forced the state to concede limited space to East Pakistan’s majority language [Rahman 1996, 105]. This approach not only suppressed regional identities but also reinforced the perception of an artificial national identity imposed from above.
Pluralism, which had once been a hallmark of Punjab under Maharaja Ranjit Singh and later under the Unionist Party, was dismantled under Ayub’s rule. Punjab’s demographic weight was neutralised under the One Unit scheme, Sindh’s distinct identity was diluted, Balochistan remained under colonial-style administrative arrangements, Pashtuns were militarised along the frontier, and Bengalis were denied their rightful majority [Jalal 1995, 133]. Ayub’s tenure thus institutionalised a system of developmental authoritarianism that would shape Pakistan’s political trajectory for decades.
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3. The War of 1965 and Its Consequences
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 remains one of the most significant episodes in Pakistan’s early history. Official discourse has long celebrated it as a moment of patriotic unity, characterised by the defence of Lahore and the rallying of the nation behind its armed forces. However, closer examination reveals a more complex picture, one in which strategic decisions were made without parliamentary consultation and regional experiences of the war diverged significantly.
The origins of the conflict lay in “Operation Gibraltar,” an initiative conceived by Ayub Khan’s generals to infiltrate armed personnel across the Line of Control into Indian-administered Kashmir with the aim of fomenting rebellion. The plan was executed without parliamentary approval or broad political consensus, underscoring the extent to which foreign and security policy had become the exclusive domain of the military establishment [Rizvi 1986, 142].
When the operation escalated into open conflict in September 1965, it was Punjab that bore the brunt of the fighting. The major tank battles around Lahore and Sialkot turned Punjabi villages into frontlines. Families in central and northern Punjab sent their sons to the trenches, and the region’s canals and fields became contested spaces between Indian and Pakistani forces. For Punjabis, the war was thus experienced as a defence of homeland and livelihood.
In contrast, for other regions the war was distant. Sindhis, Baloch, and Pashtuns did not perceive it as a direct threat to their lands but rather as a defence of “Islamic Pakistan.” In East Pakistan, thousands of miles away, the conflict appeared even more alien. Bengali soldiers were minimally involved, yet East Pakistan’s revenues contributed disproportionately to the financing of the war effort [Jahan 1972, 89]. This sense of exclusion deepened Bengali frustrations, reinforcing their perception of unequal citizenship within the federation.
The war concluded with the Tashkent Declaration in January 1966, brokered by the Soviet Union. While the agreement restored the status quo ante, it was widely perceived within Pakistan as a political defeat. Ayub Khan’s credibility was severely damaged, and his foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, broke ranks, portraying the declaration as a betrayal of national aspirations. Bhutto’s subsequent mobilisation of discontent among Punjabis and Sindhis marked the beginning of a new populist phase in Pakistan’s politics [Lamb 1991, 133].
The aftermath of the 1965 war highlighted deeper fractures within the state. Bengalis questioned why they should continue to fund wars in which they neither participated nor benefited. Sindhis asked why Karachi’s industries prospered while their irrigation systems stagnated. Punjabis, whose villages had borne the direct human cost, wondered why their youth were dying while political and military elites reaped the benefits of power. Thus, rather than fostering national cohesion, the war of 1965 reinforced the perception of inequality among Pakistan’s constituent nations [Rizvi 1986, 151].
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4. Yahya Khan and the Collapse of the Centre
The resignation of Ayub Khan in 1969, amid widespread protests, ushered in the era of General Yahya Khan. A Pathan officer from Chakwal, Yahya represented continuity rather than change in Pakistan’s militarised political order. Upon assuming power, he imposed martial law, dissolving the limited structures of civilian authority that had persisted under Ayub.
One of Yahya’s most significant contributions was the announcement of Pakistan’s first general elections, scheduled for December 1970. This decision created a moment of potential democratic transformation. The results, however, exposed the deep structural imbalances within the federation. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League swept East Pakistan, securing an outright majority in the National Assembly. For the first time since 1947, Bengalis were poised to assume leadership of the state [Jahan 1972, 113].
The response from the West Pakistani establishment was one of resistance. The UP/CP Ashrafia, entrenched in bureaucracy and political networks, alongside military elites, refused to concede power. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had won a plurality in Punjab and Sindh, rejected the prospect of Bengali dominance and demanded parity or a power-sharing arrangement. Yahya Khan, lacking both political acumen and personal discipline, vacillated between competing pressures. His reputation for indulgence and detachment only worsened the crisis [Rizvi 1986, 176].
In March 1971, negotiations collapsed, and the Pakistan Army launched “Operation Searchlight” in Dhaka. The operation was characterised by mass killings of civilians, targeted assassinations of intellectuals, and widespread atrocities, including sexual violence. Estimates vary, but thousands were killed on the first night alone, and over the following months, millions of refugees fled to India [Bass 2013, 59].
Punjabi soldiers, who composed the bulk of the infantry, were once again deployed at the front lines. This reinforced the narrative of the “Punjabi Army,” despite the fact that strategic decisions were being made by a high command dominated by Pathan and Muhajir officers. The gap between perception and reality widened: for Bengalis, the Pakistani soldier had become synonymous with Punjabi oppression, even though the chain of command lay elsewhere [Hamoodur Rahman Commission 1972, 44].
By the end of 1971, Pakistan was in a state of collapse. The inability of the military regime to recognise East Pakistan’s electoral mandate, combined with its resort to violence, destroyed the possibility of a unified state. Yahya Khan resigned in disgrace after the fall of Dhaka, leaving behind a fractured polity and a discredited military establishment.
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5. The Bangladesh Liberation War
The crisis in East Pakistan escalated into a full-scale civil war in 1971. Following Operation Searchlight, the Awami League and its supporters mobilised under the banner of the Mukti Bahini, a guerrilla force that drew on local volunteers, defecting Bengali officers, and popular support across the countryside. The brutality of the counterinsurgency campaign—including village burnings, targeted killings of intellectuals, and systematic use of sexual violence—further entrenched Bengali opposition to the central government [Bass 2013, 122].
India emerged as a decisive actor in the conflict. Faced with the influx of nearly ten million refugees into West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura, the Indian government under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi began providing training and material support to the Mukti Bahini. This transformed the civil war into a regional conflict. By November 1971, cross-border skirmishes had escalated, and on 3 December, the war became international when Pakistan launched pre-emptive airstrikes on Indian bases in the west [Raghavan 2013, 208].
The ensuing conflict lasted only thirteen days. Indian forces, advancing on multiple fronts with the support of Mukti Bahini fighters, quickly overwhelmed Pakistani positions in East Pakistan. On 16 December 1971, Lieutenant General A.A.K. Niazi surrendered to Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Arora of the Indian Army at the Dhaka Racecourse. Approximately 93,000 Pakistani troops became prisoners of war, marking one of the largest surrenders since the Second World War [Cloughley 2000, 98].
For Pakistan’s western provinces, the consequences were profound. Punjabis, who had once been portrayed as the supposed “masters” of the state, now experienced collective humiliation. Sindhis and Baloch interpreted the debacle as confirmation that centralisation was unsustainable, while Pashtuns saw the defeat as further evidence of the disconnection between military rulers and regional aspirations. For Bengalis, however, the war represented liberation—the birth of Bangladesh as an independent state.
The war of 1971 therefore signified not only the end of Pakistan’s first experiment with nationhood but also the collapse of the myth of a unified Islamic polity. The largest and most populous nation in the country had seceded, demonstrating that the suppression of language and political majority could not indefinitely sustain a centralised state [Jahan 1972, 191].
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6. The Myth of the Punjabi Army
The label “Punjabi Army” has remained one of the most persistent discourses in South Asian political debate. It is grounded in the historical reality that Punjabi villages supplied the majority of foot soldiers, a legacy of British colonial recruitment patterns that favoured districts such as Jhelum, Gujrat, and Rawalpindi [Cohen 1984, 34]. However, the conflation of demographic recruitment patterns with strategic command authority produced a misleading narrative of Punjabi domination.
Until 1972, no Punjabi ever held the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army. The succession of British, Pathan, and Muhajir officers ensured that Punjabis remained in the ranks but not in the highest decision-making roles. The perpetuation of the “Punjabi Army” myth served several political purposes. First, it provided a convenient scapegoat for the UP/CP Ashrafia, who had migrated from India and rapidly occupied key bureaucratic and administrative posts. By framing Punjabis as the oppressors, this group diverted attention from its own disproportionate influence over Pakistan’s civil institutions. Second, the narrative helped to channel provincial grievances away from the state itself and towards Punjab as a regional entity. For Bengalis, in particular, the Pakistani soldier who appeared in their villages was Punjabi by language and origin, reinforcing the perception of Punjabi culpability [Hamoodur Rahman Commission 1972, 55].
The irony of 16 December 1971 underscored the contradictions of this discourse. A Pathan general, A.A.K. Niazi, surrendered the Pakistani Army to a Punjabi Sikh general, Jagjit Singh Arora, even as Bengali crowds celebrated what they perceived as the defeat of Punjabis. Myths had overtaken facts: while Punjabis had supplied the manpower, they had not commanded the wars whose failures defined Pakistan’s early trajectory.
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7. Ethnic Breakdown of Military Command in 1971
The Hamoodur Rahman Commission’s recommendations were similarly revealing. Nine generals were recommended for public trial: five Muhajirs, two Pathans, and two Punjabis. Six officers were recommended for court-martial: three Pathans, two Muhajirs, and one Punjabi. Four major generals were deemed unfit for further service, three of whom were Muhajirs. Departmental action was recommended against three additional officers, two Punjabis and one Muhajir [Hamoodur Rahman Commission 1972, 134]. Taken together, these findings underscore a multi-ethnic distribution of culpability at senior levels, which complicates ethnicised explanations of institutional failure and challenges the reduction of the 1971 debacle to “Punjabi domination” [Cloughley 2000, 112; Rizvi 1986, 234].
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8. Synthesis: A Quarter-Century Lost (1947–1971)
The first twenty-four years of Pakistan’s history can be conceptualised as a trajectory shaped by four interlocking phases—Partition, centralisation, militarisation, and collapse—each reinforcing the next.
Partition (1947–48).
The division of Punjab produced unparalleled human and material dislocation. Millions were displaced; industrial and agrarian networks were ruptured; civic pluralism was shattered. Yet within a short time, public discourse reframed Punjabis from victims of displacement to alleged beneficiaries of the new order, obscuring the social trauma of Partition and redirecting grievance into inter-provincial suspicion [Talbot 1998, 161].
Centralisation (1948–58).
In the decade following independence, an emergent civil–military nexus consolidated authority in Karachi and Rawalpindi. The One Unit scheme diminished provincial identities and masked demographic realities, while bureaucratic practices and language policy strengthened a homogenising national project centred on Urdu and a unitary state imaginary [Jalal 1995, 202; Rahman 1996, 105]. In this context, the narrative of a “Punjabi Army” proved politically useful: it channelled discontent towards Punjab as a region while deflecting scrutiny from bureaucratic and non-Punjabi military elites [Lamb 1991, 72].
Militarisation (1958–69).
Ayub Khan’s regime entrenched a model of developmental authoritarianism that produced visible growth alongside deepening distributional asymmetries. The concentration of economic privilege among migrant-linked and military-adjacent networks, combined with continued linguistic marginalisation of provincial languages, intensified perceptions of exclusion in Sindh, Balochistan, the Frontier, and East Pakistan [Zaidi 1999, 112–119; Rizvi 1986, 88–151]. The 1965 war further revealed regional asymmetries of cost and voice, with Punjab bearing frontline losses and East Pakistan financing a conflict in which it had little strategic agency [Jahan 1972, 89, 133].
Collapse (1969–71).
The refusal to honour the electoral mandate of the Awami League and the resort to coercion precipitated state fracture. The counterinsurgency in 1971, the externalisation of the conflict through Indo–Pak war, and the subsequent surrender in Dhaka were the culmination of long-run institutional choices. The Hamoodur Rahman Commission’s record of senior-officer responsibility demonstrates that failure was systemic and cross-ethnic rather than the product of one provincial group’s dominance [Hamoodur Rahman Commission 1972, 97, 134; Cloughley 2000, 98]. In short, Pakistan’s first political project—a centralised, homogenising state—collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions in a multinational polity [Jahan 1972, 191–214; Burki 1999, 87–115].
Across these phases, the “Punjabi Army” narrative functioned as a convenient political technology: it conflated manpower supply with command authority, displaced attention from institutional design and bureaucratic power, and naturalised inter-provincial suspicion. Disaggregating recruitment patterns from decision-making structures restores analytic clarity and opens space for a more accurate account of civil–military relations in Pakistan’s first quarter-century.
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9. Conclusion
This article has reassessed the durability of the “Punjabi Army” narrative in Pakistan’s formative decades. While Punjabi districts historically supplied a large share of infantry recruits, Punjabis did not control the apex of military decision-making before 1972. Senior command remained in the hands of British officers in the immediate postcolonial period, followed by Pathan and Muhajir generals; and when accountability was finally examined, the Hamoodur Rahman Commission recorded a multi-ethnic distribution of responsibility for the 1971 catastrophe [Rizvi 1986, 45, 234; Hamoodur Rahman Commission 1972, 97, 134].
The persistence of the myth is best understood in political rather than demographic terms. It served to deflect scrutiny from the bureaucratic–military nexus anchored in Karachi and Rawalpindi, legitimise homogenising language and state policies, and recast complex structural failures as the by-product of a single province’s alleged domination [Jalal 1995, 202; Lamb 1991, 72]. Analytically, the case cautions against equating recruitment geographies with command authority; normatively, it underscores the costs of ethnicised narratives for federal cohesion.
The contemporary resonance of this history remains clear. Inter-provincial discourse in Pakistan continues to be shaped by inherited myths about ethnicity and power. A historically grounded account—one that separates manpower from command, and narrative from structure—is essential both for scholarly accuracy and for constructive debate on federal balance, language policy, and civil–military relations in the present [Lieven 2011, 119–152; Zaidi 1999, 317–336]. Correcting the record is not merely an academic exercise; it is a necessary step toward a more stable and equitable political future.
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10. References
Bass, Gary J. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide. New York: Vintage, 2013.
Burki, Shahid Javed. Pakistan: Fifty Years of Nationhood. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.
Cloughley, Brian. A History of the Pakistan Army: Wars and Insurrections. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Cohen, Stephen P. The Pakistan Army. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. Government of Pakistan, 1972 (declassified excerpts).
Jahan, Rounaq. Pakistan: Failure in National Integration. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972.
Jalal, Ayesha. The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan’s Political Economy of Defence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Lamb, Christina. Waiting for Allah: Pakistan’s Struggle for Democracy. London: Viking, 1991.
Lieven, Anatol. Pakistan: A Hard Country. London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2011.
Rahman, Tariq. Language and Politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Raghavan, Srinath. 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Rizvi, Hasan Askari. The Military and Politics in Pakistan 1947–1986. Lahore: Progressive Publishers, 1986.
Talbot, Ian. Pakistan: A Modern History. London: Hurst, 1998.
Zaidi, Akbar S. Issues in Pakistan’s Economy. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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Author Biography
Dr. Masood Tariq is a Karachi-based politician and political theorist. He formerly served as Senior Vice President of the Pakistan Muslim Students Federation (PMSF) Sindh, Councillor of the Municipal Corporation Hyderabad, Advisor to the Chief Minister of Sindh, and Member of the Sindh Cabinet.
His research explores South Asian geopolitics, postcolonial state formation, regional nationalism, and inter-ethnic politics, with a focus on the Punjabi question and Cold War strategic alignments.
He also writes on Pakistan’s socio-political and economic structures, analysing their structural causes and proposing policy-oriented solutions aligned with historical research and contemporary strategy.
His work aims to bridge historical scholarship and strategic analysis to inform policymaking across South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East.
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