by Saeeduddin Ahmad Dar Pakistan came into being under most unfavourable circumstances. Few weeks before independence, anti-Muslim riots broke out in East Punjab and a number of adjoining princely states. The riots which were “long planned and directed from a very high level”, were nothing less than “a war of extermination against the Muslim minority”.1 Soon the riots spread to Delhi, where it became impossible for a Muslim “to move freely without risk to his life”.2 Consequently, millions of Muslims from India were forced to take refuge in Pakistan. The immediate problem of the Government of Pakistan, was, therefore, to provide them food and shelter. It was by no means an easy task for a state, which had literally started from a scratch. At the same time, the planned migration of the Hindus, who controlled the economic resources of the areas constituting Pakistan before independence, crippled Pakistan’s economy. The problems of the new state were enhanced by the hostile policy of th