he 1971 war and separation of East-Pakistan demoralized and shattered the nation. President General Yahya Khan handed over the political power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples Party. With PPP's coming to power, the democratic socialists and visionaries came to the power for the first time in the country's history, under a democratic transition. Bhutto made critical decision after dismissing chiefs of army, navyand the air force while authorized home confinement orders for General Yahya Khan and several of his collaborators. He adopted the East-Pakistan Commission's recommendations and authorized large-scale court-martial of army officers tainted for their role in East Pakistan. To keep the country united, Bhutto launched a series of internal intelligence operations to crack down on the fissiparous nationalist sentiments and movements in the provinces. Proponents of socialism were supported as part of the internal policies and the PPP faced serious challenges, both on internal and foreign fronts.
This period starting from 1971 until 1977 was a period of left-wing democracy, the growth of national spirit, economic nationalization, covert atomic bomb projects, promotion of scientific, literary, cultural activities and the left-wing socialism. Regarded as the period of reconstruction, rehabilitation, re-establishment, and the rise of the left-wing sphere of the country, the new industrial, manpower development, and the labour policies were promulgated in the ending weeks of December 1971. In 1972, the country's top intelligence services provided an assessment on Indian nuclear program, citing the evidences that: "India was close to developing a nuclear weapon under its nuclear programme". Chairing a secret winter seminar in January 1972, which came to be known as "Multan meeting", Bhutto rallied a large numbers academic scientists to build the atomic bomb for national survival. The atomic bomb project brought together a team of prominent academic scientists and engineers, headed by theoretical physicist Abdus Salam, to develop nuclear devices. Salam later won the Nobel Prize for Physics for developing the theory for unification of weak nuclear forces and strong electromagnetic forces.[93]
The PPP created the 1973 Constitution with the support of Islamists.[94] The Constitution declared Pakistan an Islamic Republic and Islam as the state religion. It also stated that all laws would have to be brought into accordance with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah and that no law repugnant to such injunctions could be enacted.[95] The 1973 Constitution also created certain institutions such as the Shariat Court and the Council of Islamic Ideology to channel the interpretation and application of Islam.[96]
In 1973 a serious nationalist rebellion also took place in Balochistan province and this led to the harsh suppression of Baloch rebels with the Shah of Iran purportedly assisting with air support in order to prevent the conflict from spilling over into Iranian Balochistan. The conflict ended later after an amnesty and subsequent stabilization by the provincial military administrator Rahimuddin Khan. Bhutto and his government carried out major reforms such as the establishment and development and re-designing of the country's infrastructure, the establishment of the Joint Chiefs Committee (as well Joint Strategic Forces Command), the reorganization of the military, special forces and chain of commands in the military. Steps were taken for democratization of civil bureaucracy, election commission and the political structure, expansion of country's economic and human infrastructure growth, starting first with the agriculture, land reforms, and government-control (nationalization) of major private industries, industrialization and the expansion of the higher education systemthroughout the country. In 1974, Bhutto succumbed to increasing pressure from religious parties and helped Parliament to declare the Ahmadiyya adherents as non-Muslims. Bhutto's efforts undermined and dismantled the private-sector and conservative approach for political power in country's political setup.
Relations with the United States gradually went down, and completing the gap after normalizing the relations with the Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc, North Korea, China, and the Arab world. With Soviet technical assistance, the country's first steel mill was established in Karachi, which proved to be a crucial step in industrializing the economy. Bhutto promised in a speech to Pakistan's National Assembly that "If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass and leaves, even go hungry. But we will get one of our own, we have no alternative." Alarmed by India's surprise nuclear test in 1974, Bhutto accelerated Pakistan's atomic bomb project.[97] This crash project reached a historical milestone in 1978 when the desired level of production of fissile core material was reached as well as first design of physics package which eventually led to a secret sub-critical testings ("Kirana-I" and "Test Kahuta") in 1983. Relations with India soured and Bhutto launched aggressive diplomatic war and measures against India at the United Nations. Openly targeting Indian nuclear programme on multiple occasions and pushing India on the defense, Bhutto's covertly worked on expanding the atomic bomb project on a shortest time possible.
From 1976 to 1977, Bhutto more densely emphasized his political position and faced an intense and heated diplomatic war with the United States and President Jimmy Carter, who worked covertly to damage the credibility of Bhutto in Pakistan. Bhutto, with his scientist colleague Aziz Ahmed, thwarted any U.S. attempts to infiltrate the atomic bomb programme. In 1976, during a secret mission, Henry Kissinger threatened Bhutto and his colleague using an inhumane language. After the meeting, Bhutto aggressively put efforts to successfully develop the atomic project before the coming elections.
As the country entered 1976, the socialist alliance of Bhutto collapsed, forcing his left-wing allies to form an alliance with right-wing conservatives and Islamists to challenge the power of the PPP. The Islamists started a Nizam-e-Mustafa movement[98] which demanded the establishment of an Islamic state in the country and removal of immorality from society. In an effort to meet the demands of Islamists, Bhutto banned the drinking and selling of wine by Muslims and also banned nightclubs and horse racing.[99]
In 1977, the general elections were held which marked the Peoples Party as victorious but this was challenged by the opposition, which accused Bhutto of rigging the election process. An intensified political disorder took place against Bhutto and Chief of Army Staff General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq took power in a bloodless coup. Following this, Bhutto and his leftist colleagues were dragged into a two-year-long controversial trial in Supreme Court. Bhutto was later executed in 1979, after being convicted of authorizing the murder of a political opponent, in a controversial 4–3 split decision by the Supreme Court.
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