You are heavily and utterly misinformed. Please read up actual historical accounts, maybe those in Pakistan even....not my words, but written in Pakistan i.e.the likes of the Hamoodur Rahman report about 1971...
IMHO - Bengalis never had representation in the cabinet per their population percentage, please read up on this. This was a big beef with the Bengalis which the Sheikh capitalized on...even in Dhaka itself, much lower grade govt. posts (office administrator) always went to Pakistanis (specifically Punjabis) in spite of Bengalis having far higher merit and education. Even in private sector jobs Punjabis preferred their own kind over Bengalis. If we have to compare, people in India have always been careful about this sort of 'favoritism'.
Nepotism in Punjabi circles pre-1971 was rife, even sitting in Dhaka they didn't let up on this. Bengalis had major reason to get pissed. Forty some years later - we still see the whole propaganda crap continuing like a broken record - "We Punjabis are all 'Saffed and superior', Bengalis are kala-kala idiots". This is freaking laughable, I think it is amazing that a nation led primarily by a small number of Punjabis who believe in such rampant racism and deeply ingrained 'faraq' philosophy has continued to survive and has managed to hold together.
I don't think the Sheikh's followers killed a large number of people pre-1971. Even if they did, that certainly does not justify unleashing tanks unannounced on a mostly unarmed population or dragging people out of their homes and making them dig their own graves, only to be killed by brush-fire. The footage is all available. No amount of hand-wringing or white-washing in Pakistan will make these evidences disappear.
This type of betrayal from one's own army is unthinkable, whose arms and bullets were bought through one's own hard-earned sweat. I don't think Yahya Khan could do it in Pakistan itself. Only when a General thinks Bengalis as less than human is this sort of skulduggery possible.
Bhutto was manic depressive, an egomaniac and politically foolhardy. Even today check out his speeches on YouTube and you'll get the idea. I'm not saying the Sheikh was anything great politically either but he exercised his options the best way he could. The sane thing would have been to transfer power using a self-rule arrangement and let the chips fall where they may. But Bhutto and his Islamabad Punjabi buddies were going to have none of it, given their ego. Very immature move.
Touche. Look how Bhutto died....
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it...
Bengalis had extreme lust for power and domination. In their lust for power they never realised that West Pakistan was heterogenous entity and two of its provinces at the time were extremely restive and that the NWFP (though alhamdulillah Pashtun nationalism is almost gone now) in particular needed more attention.
They did not realise there were 4 main ethnicities in Pakistan and that Bengali could not be made an official language. Urdu was not native to any Pakistani province therefore it was imposed as a 'neutral' language on an ethnically/linguistically diverse country.
But how could Bengalis accept a neutral language. Gosh they needed to dominate the country. What racist arrogance!
As far as political representation goes then:
1) Nazimuddin's cabinet was 40% Bengali.
2) Bogra's cabinet was 35% Bengali
3)Muhammad Ali's cabinet was 44% Bengali
4) Suhrawardy's cabinet was 57% Bengali
The least representation you Bengalis had was in Ayub's time where you were 25%. But there is nothing in our laws or religion which said every ethnicity has to be given equal representation. You work hard, you work your way up. And 25% is no small number either.
For u’r information at the time of partition-1947, out of eighty three Indian civil officers who opted for Pakistan, only one was a Bengali i.e. 1.20%. This figure went to
34% in 1965 & 40.80% in 1969.
As regard other Central superior services, Bengalis were 73 out of 177 in foreign service, 92/210 in police,208/606 in financial services etc., These figures are satisfactory but the Bengalis had endless greed/lust….
Regarding representation in armed forces,
well it was only 1% in 1947, parity cannot be achieved overnight. Still to satisfy Bengalis, efforts were made to a extent that recruitment procedure was softened in east-pakistan. Bengalis represented 30% of armed forces in 1967, a very satisfactory figure. They were annoyed of the fact that most of the senior rank officers were from Pakistan. Oh come on’ u can’t become generals overnight, one has to wait very long. Endless greed/lust/nationalism…………
In the words of Professor Rushbrook Williams “east Pakistan had made more progress in the economic field in the quarter of a century since Pakistan emerged as an independent state than at any other period in her long history”
“My sense of history tells me that this, however regrettable, is not surprising. A population which is deeply oppressed and sunk in misery shows few signs of restlessness; it lacks the energy. It is when things are beginning to improve, and when the appetite for further and more rapid improvement grows, that restlessness and impatience manifest themselves.. And if these emotions are further excited by steady and unremitting, if undercover, psychological warfare from across Indian border, they become in time formidable obstacles to the maintenance of order and stability”
“These were the people whose appetites had grown to the extent that they felt that only in an independent east-pakistan they would get proper recognition and satisfaction”
And no matter what the government would have done for Bengalis, you would never have been pleased. Your Mujib had treacherous sentiments even in the 1950s. I will quote what Mujib said:
In an television interview he said
he had been working for the independence of Bangladesh since 1948"
television interview. London weekend television, 16th jan 1972
