Pakistan’s first constitution was the same one that governed India since 1935, passed by the British in response to India’s demands for greater freedom. For an independent Pakistan many of the provisions were now not applicable, and more important still failed to address the central issue of the Muslim religion in governance. Constitutional debates centered on whether Pakistan will be a secular or a Muslim state. Four complete constitutions were enacted — and abrogated — between 1956 and 1973, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became Prime Minister.

On this day, August 14, in 1973, on the same day that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, one of the framers of the Pakistani Constitution of 1973, became Prime Minister, the constitution was enacted.

The 1973 constitution, as the previous ones, was the result of an uneasy compromise between the three main camps in the constitutional debate. A quiet camp of secularists were convinced that religious differences will eventually fade into the background of a common national identity. A group of modernists invoked the ancient Muslim concept ijma – ‘consensus’ – as a pillar of government, this trying to impart Muslim legitimacy on their preferred democratic system. Then there were the men of religion, who sought to reform — and better yet replace — the Western of governance with one hewing closer to the Koran.