Pakistani March, Bradford April 1979 is one of several films provided by the West Yorkshire Police Authority, though the first is from 1939, the collection mainly covers the ‘60s and ‘70s, and features a range of events from training videos to reconstructions and simulations. There are a number of films featuring demonstrations, mostly by the National Front in the 1970s, suggesting that this type of footage may have been made as example footage of handling marches, demonstrations or protests...

Pakistani March, Bradford April 1979 is one of several films provided by the West Yorkshire Police Authority, though the first is from 1939, the collection mainly covers the ‘60s and ‘70s, and features a range of events from training videos to reconstructions and simulations. There are a number of films featuring demonstrations, mostly by the National Front in the 1970s, suggesting that this type of footage may have been made as example footage of handling marches, demonstrations or protests in public places, simply a documentation of a major event that the police were involved with, or for use as news footage.

The Pakistani March featured in this film was a response to the death of Ali Bhutto, the 9th Prime Minister and 4th President of Pakistan. Bhutto was the founder of the Pakistan’s People Party (PPP) who aimed for a Pakistan that was “democratic, progressive and welfare state at peace with itself and the world” (Shaheedi, references), with the people of Pakistan themselves as the final arbiter in political issues. Bhutto was sentenced to death for the murder of a political opponent’s father and was hanged on the 4th April 1979. The affair began in 1977 when General Zia-ul-Haq seized power in Pakistan and deposed Bhutto in a bloodless coup on the grounds that the PPP had rigged that year’s elections. Later in the year, Bhutto was accused of orchestrating an attack on political opponent Ahmed Raza Khan Kasuri during which Kasuri’s father was shot and died shortly after in hospital. Despite Zia denying interfering or influencing the trial in any way, Bhutto was sentenced to death, an action that was referred to as ‘judicial assassination’, regardless of the fact that the court found him not guilty. Bhutto did not appeal for clemency, though there were many appeals from several world leaders, on the grounds that he was innocent and would not beg for leniency from the man who toppled him from power, though there was heavy pressure on Zia from Pakistani army and population to revoke the death sentence as it was widely believed that Bhutto’s death would give him martyr status and socially destabilise Pakistan, provoking a political backlash from Bhutto’s followers. Equally, however, had Zia allowed Bhutto to live, it is likely that Bhutto would have led a political counterattack against Zia’s policies.

After the Bhutto’s death, his daughter, Benazir Bhutto, became the leader of the PPP which was voted in during the elections following the death of General Zia in a plane crash. Sadly, like her father, she was also assassinated on the 27th December 2007. Bhutto’s trial had been dubious, but at the time he had been losing popularity as Prime Minister so it is likely that the march featured in the film was not a pro-Bhutto issue but an anti-Zia protest, hence the signs held up by protestors.

Bradford has had a significant Pakistani community since immigration in the 1950s. During this period the British government encouraged migration to meet post-war labour needs particularly in Yorkshire and Lancashire mills and foundries in the Midlands. Furthermore, a large percentage of Pakistanis that immigrated to Bradford were from the Mirpur, in the Kashmir region of Pakistan. In the late 1950s a dam project was being carried out but the dam burst, flooding much of the Mirpur district. As compensation some residents were offered passports leading to many of them moving to Bradford. Further immigration continued until 1962 after the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed. This act restricted automatic entry into the UK for Commonwealth citizens and instead proposed a ‘voucher’ system whereby immigrants had to have work vouchers, similar to work visa, in order to be able to emigrate to the United Kingdom. Usually Pakistani men would come to the UK to work and once they had established a home and sufficient finance, their families would join them.

After the death of Bhutto tensions were high in Bradford as its Pakistani community held varying views of Bhutto’s premiership. The majority were Bhutto supporters, saddened by his death, who praised his political backing for Pakistan’s ‘common men’, and who believed that his death would bring about the collapse of Pakistan. Others maintained that he was a fraud who never intended to stick by his policies and crafted his image through his control of the media. Pakistanis of the second view often supported General Zia claiming that the trial of Bhutto was entirely legal, not a politically motivated stunt and that Zia had always shown respect for the law.

This film of the 1979 demonstration by anti-Zia protestors shows how peaceful a march it was save for one incident involving the window of Malik’s travel agency being smashed. This was likely the result of the Bradford branch of the PPP’s appeal for Pakistanis in Bradford to boycott Pakistan International Airlines and instead use different airlines when travelling to and from Pakistan. The PPP made further appeals for Pakistanis to boycott Pakistani banks as well by withdrawing their accounts and transferring their money to English banks instead and to not send money to family members in Pakistan unless in emergency. The reasoning for these boycotts lies in the dependency of Pakistani national finances on remittances from the communities in the UK; in doing so the PPP believed that General Zia and his military dictatorship would be unable to fund the purchases and upkeep of weaponry and tanks or to pay soldiers to shoot demonstrators. Malik’s travel agency was also run by Abdul Quayyum Malik, a supporter of the anti-Bhutto Tehrik-e-Istiq organisation.

References

Akram Shaheedi, Bhutto’s legacy lives on, http://www.ppp.org.pk/news_detail.php?news_id=441, 4th April, 2015. 

Legacies: Bradford, Immigration and Emigration

Origins of Commonwealth Immigration

The Pakistani Muslim Community in England – Understanding Muslim Ethnic Communities, The Change Institute, Department for Communities and Local Government, March 2009.

Pakistan People’s Party website

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Death Sentence, a short interview with General Zia