Fall of Dacca

[Neo]

Fall of Dacca ​

Wednesday December 12, 2007

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
jafri@rifiela.com

December 16 comes every year to haunt the nation, particularly those few remaining who were witness to the debacle. I had the misfortune to be one. On this day the Quaid’s Pakistan, which was considered an epitome of ‘Divided we Stand’, got actually divided by breaking lose all bonds on unity between the two wings. That day the largest Muslim army suffered the humiliation of the greatest defeat. This was the darkest day of our national history that stunned everyone. How did it happen? Equipped with the hindsight knowledge, I will try to reconstruct some of the sad saga.

In early July 70 I was posted to East Pakistan as the Principal Staff Officer (GSO-1) to late Major General Rao Farman Ali Khan – in charge Martial Law (Civil Affairs). In my such capacity I had the opportunity of seeing the events unfolding themselves from the vantage viewpoint of the Governor House, Dacca – the then epicentre of the entire activity in East Pakistan. I had also access to the events of the past buried in the files which kept popping up randomly during my daily official work. This all presented me with a fairly clear picture of all that was happening there and why.

If I am asked who to blame for the debacle I would say that we were all – from the common man in the street to the highest person in the office, equally responsible for it. The common man for committing the sin of keeping himself ignorant of the under currents simmering there ever since that fateful 19TH day of March 1948 when Quaid raising his admonishing finger to the Bengali students at the Dacca University convocation had warned them that Urdu will be the only official state language of Pakistan, and not trying to assess the anguish caused to the Bengalis and take measures to bring the rapprochement. The highest in authority were guilty of being too greedy, power hungry and selfish.

Unfortunately we all treated East Pakistan as a colony of ours and never granted them their justly deserved status of being the major human organ of the Pakistan body – 54 percent of the population. As power barons of the Federal government mostly haled from West Pakistan they never shared the power willingly or happily with their Bengali brethren.

Imaging, the Bengalis though in majority going jubilant in 1956 when Suhrawardy got them the ‘parity’ (equal treatment) with the West Pakistanis! Ever heard of a majority people happily thanking the minority people for treating them equally ? We did it again in 1971. The minority pronouncing the majority unpatriotic, traitor and secessionist! Minority forcing the majority to leave the country whose foundations they had laid in 1906! Not only, that the Bengalis were treated as unequals but it is also a fact that they were the major revenue earner for Pakistan, mainly through the export of their Golden Fibre to Manchester and Dundee jute mills in the UK. They bore the major financial burden of Pakistan and happily too for more than 15 years and till 1962 the cash flow was from East Pakistan to West Pakistan. Thereafter, after an equilibrium of about two years the process reversed but not that heavily. Bengalis had, therefore, every reason to be chary of and chagrin with the sala Punzabis. (every West Pakistani was a Punjabi to them).

Though the Bengalis proved themselves to be equally, if not more, patriotic than the West Pakistan during the 65 war with India, yet the state of mutual confidence between the two left more to be desired. By 1970 the relations deteriorated further and irreversibly. The last straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was Bhutto’s rejection of the 1969 election results which had given Shaikh Mujib ur Rehman’s Awami League a clear cut majority to form the government at the centre. ZAB’s one after the other statements like “we will break the legs of any one going to Dacca to attend the NA session there”, “Udhar tum idhar humm” and “I would rather be a top dog of half of Pakistan than be an underdog of full Pakistan” left little doubt in the minds of Mujib and company who opted for the Civil Disobedience in the province. Their provincial autonomy stance kept becoming tougher by the day and all negotiations between them and the West Pakistani leaders and the Federal government led by Gen.Yahya himself failed.

To quell the civil disobedience the army struck on the night of 25th March 1970, starting an internecine guerrilla war between the military and Mukti Bahani lasting for 8 long months. On 21st November 1970 – Eid Day – the Indians launched a full fledged armed attack on East Pakistan which lasted for 26 days of intense fighting for Pakistan army under extremely adverse conditions of (1) being very badly out-numbered in men and material – 3 Indian Corps against One and that too lame, under strength and ill equipped, no tanks, very little artillery – only the infantry and the a battalion of Engineers, (2) hostility of the local populace – no army can fight without the support of the civilians of the country, but here what to talk of the support the civil populace was acting as the enemy, supporting the Indians by providing them with all kinds of intelligence needed by them, (3) poor communications and logistics – no reinforcements or arms and equipment could be supplied from West Pakistan. India had stopped the over flights since February 70 after very cleverly and clandestinely planting the Ganga episode, (4) lack of air cover - the only squadron of the F-86s that we had could not operate as the runway of the only military airport Kurmi Tola had been rendered out of service by the Indians bombing it incessantly. If anything, under such impossible conditions, it goes to the credit of the army that it could fight for over nine months in East Pakistan.

In the second half of the year 1970 those in power - both civil and military – seemed to be suffering from a stupor and behaving like silent spectators waiting helplessly for the catastrophe to fall. I distinctly remember Major General A Rahim Khan – later Secretary General Defence, on or around 11 July 1970 while addressing a batch of newly posted two dozen Lt Cols and Majors to East Pakistan saying, “Gentlemen, the entire administration of the province had collapsed. I have made it stand but only on its knees. Now it will be for you to make it stand and stand it erect.” Having said this the General went on to add, “I have given my word to the Chief (Gen. Yahya) to give me three months for the task, and If I cannot do it, he can -- (I murmured under my lip, hang me!) he can - replace me.”. I was shocked that the general had equated the stakes simply to his replacement! There would be nothing in three months to replace him for!! On another occasion Lieutenant General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi – alias Tiger Niazi – the GOC Eastern Command as late as in October 70, before a special briefing to a visiting high powered army team from the GHQ on the latest military situation in East Pakistan, advised his senior staff officers not to discourage the generals from the GHQ by giving them the dismal picture or ask them for more troops. He quipped, “gentlemen, if they send us more troops - more the merrier, if not - lesser the better”.

With the result that the operational military map on the board showed more of ‘green’ pins all over the area than a few ‘Red’ pins depicting the area under the control of the Mukti Bahani. Whereas the map should have been clustered with the Red pins. The GHQ team returned satisfied about all being hunky-dor’y in East Pakistan. Similar ‘Sab Achha’ reports kept emanating from various sectors and parts of East Pakistan to West Pakistan, till the water crossed over the head. But by then it was too late for any political solution that the likes of Gen. Farman were advocating from the beginning but being too junior in the army hierarchy were not given due importance. To a few others it was a case of misplaced egoistic valour – not to be dubbed as the ‘chickens’ in the army parlance. The true information was not only denied to the common man in West Pakistan but even to those at the helm also.

Handling of the East Pakistan issue at the International level, too, was a fiasco on our part. We had not only not mobilised any world opinion in our favour but had rather alienated them mostly. On the other hand Indira undertook a whirlwind tour of 19 countries in October 1970 propagating the imaginary atrocities against the Bengalis and particularly the Hindus of East Pakistan and yet assuring each one of them that India had no designs of attacking it. While she was convincing and canvassing the world powers, her army’s Eastern Command was giving the final touches to the Attack Plan in Fort William at the eastern bank of river Hooghly, Calcutta.

Whereas in our case despite Nixon’s more or less ordering Kissinger to ‘do some thing’ their 7th Fleet just passed by the Bay of Bengal without even radioing the customary courtesy good will message or tooting its horns thrice. I am personally a witness to the Chinese repeated enquiries as to what could they do, after we had established am emergency radio link with them? But all that we could get from the stupor laden President’s Secretariat at Rawalpindi was, “Just wait, please”. Hopes from the sincere Chinese friends were so high that when the Indians parachuted at Narain Ganj every one thought them to be the Chinese! Our Eastern Command had a morbid fear of the Indians capturing a piece of the territory and passing it on to the Muktis who would plant a flag there and declare it to be the Bangla Desh, and which the Indians will recognise instantly. Thus giving birth to Bangla Desh.

Consequently they spread the troops in a thin line all along the border, weakening themselves all over. There was no depth, no reserves, no second lines. There was enemy (Indians) in the front and enemy at the back (Muktis).They never realised that it was not the territory but the capital of the country that mattered. It had to be the Warsaw, the Paris, the Moscow, the Berlin and in our case the Dacca which until captured by the enemy the country would not fall. If only they had concentrated all the troops in Dacca, made a fortress out of it and fought there for months, which they could do. The East Pakistan story would have been different. We still wouldn’t have been able to avert the creation of Bangla Desh but it would have come into being by the intervention of the world powers and probably the UNO itself. Pakistan would not have had to suffer the ignominy of a defeat.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
30, Werstridge-1
Rawalpindi 46000
Tel: (051) 5465 3344

Pakistan News Service - PakTribune

 

[mujahideen]

This surly was the worst day in our countries history. I hope we have learned lessons from the past and I pray to Allah that such days never reoccur. The next time we say Pakistan Zindabad, we ought to say it from the heart and really believe it. This is why I say that in order to stop the country from repeating the past we ought to come together and discuss all of our issues and find common ground. We need to be a little soft, I beg you please stop this politics of confrontation and apply some sort of reconciliation in our politics. Please for god sakes our country can't take more of this confrontation. Please for the sake of our future generation, if Pakistan is lost where will they go, if Pakistan is lost our enemies have won. Please lets come together under this flag, we are all brothers and sisters. Please do not let these political parties take advantage of you, please. This Pakistan which our past generation brought into existence had given a lot of sacrifices for it, we mustn't let their sacrifices go to waste. We belong to a nation, we all salute the same flag, please I cant see much more of this killing. This Pakistan which we built out of literally nothing must survive. For Pakistan's sake, may god bless the Pakistani nation with his blessing and remember and pray always PAKISTAN ZINDABAD.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I think this article of the person who was at the epicentre of East Pakistan happening is an adequate J'ai dit à droite et a été (if that is French) of what I had written in the thread 'Creation of Bangladesh'.

I think it could not be more authentic!

One must face reality and work towards the lessons learnt instead of being ostriches in a patriotic way.

I would even say that because of the psyche of treating East Pakistan as an appendage to Pakistan, no serious thought was giving to the defence of East Pakistan where the troops were not adequate for the threat envisaged, whether it be 1971 or even before.

If indeed a Corps was not adequate, then whatever was adequate should have been located in East Pakistan right from 1947 since the threat of India was evident to the Pakistani mind, right from that day.

Therefore, there is ground to believe that the East Pakistanis were never taken seriously to be Pakistani except most grudgingly and thus was always alienated. Statements like 'Idhar hum, udhar tum' indicates the feeling as also the fact that the Bengalis felt that all West Pakistanis were 'Punzabis'.

 

[roadrunner]

Good find..Of course I have a few comments to make.

If I am asked who to blame for the debacle I would say that we were all – from the common man in the street to the highest person in the office, equally responsible for it. The common man for committing the sin of keeping himself ignorant of the under currents simmering there ever since that fateful 19TH day of March 1948 when Quaid raising his admonishing finger to the Bengali students at the Dacca University convocation had warned them that Urdu will be the only official state language of Pakistan, and not trying to assess the anguish caused to the Bengalis and take measures to bring the rapprochement. The highest in authority were guilty of being too greedy, power hungry and selfish.

I disagree with this paragraph of his. Everyone in Pakistan, be they Pashtuns, Baloch, Sindhi, or even the Punjabis had to "suffer" the use of Urdu as a common language. However, it was only the Bengalis who complained..Why was this? They were either more nationalistic (possible)..or more easily provoked by their nationalistic leaders into believing Urdu was a threat to their way of life. If it was a threat to the Bengalis, it was a threat to the Pashtuns, the Sindhis, etc, but noone cared about it there.

Secondly, The Quaid made it VERY CLEAR in Lucknow, 1937 (a resolution was made), that a united Pakistan would be speaking Urdu as the official language. It was the logical choice. If Punjabi, or Bengalis was picked, the other ethnic groups would feel the bias against them. In fact, when Bangla was made the official language, the other ethnic groups of Pakistan still said nothing! However, the point was that the election manifesto of 1946 made it clear that Urdu was to be the official language of Pakistan, and this was what the Bengalis had voted for. Now later, they changed their minds, and wanted Bengali to be the official language. Sure Quaid made a mistake, and that mistake was incorporating Bengal into Pakistan. He should have noticed they were going to go into this self pitiful state and start revolting over their perceived discrimination.

So my point is that his paragraph is incorrect. The elites were not being selfish. The elites wanted unity in Pakistan. That unity was based on a common, neutral lingua franca, which everyone had voted for in the 1946 elections. It was not selfish to demand Urdu be the common language of Pakistan.

Unfortunately we all treated East Pakistan as a colony of ours and never granted them their justly deserved status of being the major human organ of the Pakistan body – 54 percent of the population. As power barons of the Federal government mostly haled from West Pakistan they never shared the power willingly or happily with their Bengali brethren.

This isn't true. The "power barons" were the Bharati Muhajirs that moved to Karachi at Partition. They even took the capital to Karachi such was their influence. The Bharati Muhajirs willingly chose West Pakistan over East Pakistan. Whether they wanted to share power or wealth with East Pakistan was up to them. They did, incidentally, but there were so many factors governing the spread of wealth in East and West Pakistan, that this analysis he's made here is too simplistic.

Imaging, the Bengalis though in majority going jubilant in 1956 when Suhrawardy got them the ‘parity’ (equal treatment) with the West Pakistanis! Ever heard of a majority people happily thanking the minority people for treating them equally ?

I'm not sure what he's talking about here. If he's talking about Suhrawardy becoming Prime Minister in 1956, boy has he made another big mistake. Suhrawardy was the 5th prime minister of Pakistan. Previous to him was Chowdry Ali, and Indian, and before him (3rd Prime minister of Pakistan) was Ali Bogra, ANOTHER BENGALI. Before him (2nd Prime minister of Pakistan was Khwadji Nazimuddin who was, no guesses, yet another Bengali. The first decade an a half of Pakistan's existsence was full of Bengali leaders of Pakistan. Out of the first 6 prime ministers, from 1948 - 1960, 4 of them were Bengali. Even the first president of Pakistan was Bengali. If anyone had a domination in Pakistani politics it was the Bengalis.

He makes a comment about a majority people happily thanking the minority for treating them equally. But this is ignoring the situation that existed in Pakistan at the time. The federal government was weak, the private investors (mainly Muhajirs) were the rich people. They chose to invest where they wanted to, not the Pakistani government. The federal government had an obligation to make sure that public institutions gave the same opportunities to both East and West Pakistanis. If one looks at the education statistics of both East and West Pakistan, East Pakistan had considerably more primary and secondary schools than West Pakistan following Partition. Suhrawardy, if it's true he alloted more money to Bengal to create more schools there than West Pakistan, was not acting in a fair manner to generate parity between the two wings, in fact quite the opposite. He should have tried to make the number of schools in both East and West Pakistan the same. That really is discrimination, when you favour your own people, over another people, and give them better chances to succeed than the rest. Quite frankly, it's ludicrous, what he's writing there. Of course in India, the minority rules the majority, and I'm sure the majority would be happy to have the same rights as those upper caste Hindus. It's a convenient example.

We did it again in 1971. The minority pronouncing the majority unpatriotic, traitor and secessionist!

A traitor would be someone form your side who sides with your enemies. Who sided with India, and why doesn't the definition of traitor fit them? Secessionist, most definitely. Unpatriotic to the country of Pakistan, yes.

Minority forcing the majority to leave the country whose foundations they had laid in 1906! Not only, that the Bengalis were treated as unequals but it is also a fact that they were the major revenue earner for Pakistan, mainly through the export of their Golden Fibre to Manchester and Dundee jute mills in the UK. They bore the major financial burden of Pakistan and happily too for more than 15 years and till 1962 the cash flow was from East Pakistan to West Pakistan. Thereafter, after an equilibrium of about two years the process reversed but not that heavily. Bengalis had, therefore, every reason to be chary of and chagrin with the sala Punzabis. (every West Pakistani was a Punjabi to them).

East Pakistan did produce more goods than West Pakistan because it had more industries there prior to Partition. If West Pakistan had less industries, does it not make sense to create more industries in West Pakistan to level out the opportunities for both West and East Pakistanis? Therefore West Pakistan would need more funding to achieve this "parity" this fellow goes on about.

Secondly, it was private investment that generated the revenue from East Pakistan. Adamjee's jute mill was the classic example. The biggest jute mill (in the world in fact) was built by the West Pakistani entrepreneur in East Pakistan. Why should the revenue from this mill have gone to the federal government? No reason at all, it was pocketed by a civilian, Adamjee himself. Therefore, why should the federal government invest back into East Pakistan, when it was not receiving any revenues from the jute mills and other industries? Answer is, it shouldn't invest the money, because it didn't receive any money from East Pakistan! One could argue that the private investors were being unfair, but it is their money, and that is what private investors do. But even this falls flat on its face when one considers East Pakistan had better institutions than West Pakistan, and the federal government (and investors) should have (and were) trying to level out the playing field for both East and West PakistanIs.

Though the Bengalis proved themselves to be equally, if not more, patriotic than the West Pakistan during the 65 war with India, yet the state of mutual confidence between the two left more to be desired. By 1970 the relations deteriorated further and irreversibly. The last straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was Bhutto’s rejection of the 1969 election results which had given Shaikh Mujib ur Rehman’s Awami League a clear cut majority to form the government at the centre. ZAB’s one after the other statements like “we will break the legs of any one going to Dacca to attend the NA session there”, “Udhar tum idhar humm” and “I would rather be a top dog of half of Pakistan than be an underdog of full Pakistan” left little doubt in the minds of Mujib and company who opted for the Civil Disobedience in the province. Their provincial autonomy stance kept becoming tougher by the day and all negotiations between them and the West Pakistani leaders and the Federal government led by Gen.Yahya himself failed.

Mujib won the election, but then broke the Legal Framework Order by demanding his 6-point Plan. Until he renounced, or at least amended his plan, he could not take office. Why not mention of this? The Legal Framework Order is quite clear on this. The following is Article 20 of the Legal Framework Order.

• Article 20
  The Constitution shall be so framed as to embody the following fundamental principles:-
  (1) Pakistan shall be a federal republic to be known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in which the provinces and other territories which are now and may hereinafter be included in Pakistan shall be so united in a federation that the independence, the territorial integrity and the national solidarity of Pakistan are ensured and that the unity of the federation in not in any manner impaired.

One of Mujib's points in his 6-points..

• Furthermore, a separate banking reserve should be established and separate fiscal and monetary policy be adopted for East Pakistan.

And there we have it. Would this 'point' of Mujib have impaired the economic unity of the federation? I think it's pretty clear that the unity of the federation would have been impaired by splitting up the economy into several different units.

To quell the civil disobedience the army struck on the night of 25th March 1970, starting an internecine guerrilla war between the military and Mukti Bahani lasting for 8 long months. On 21st November 1970 – Eid Day – the Indians launched a full fledged armed attack on East Pakistan which lasted for 26 days of intense fighting for Pakistan army under extremely adverse conditions of (1) being very badly out-numbered in men and material – 3 Indian Corps against One and that too lame, under strength and ill equipped, no tanks, very little artillery – only the infantry and the a battalion of Engineers, (2) hostility of the local populace – no army can fight without the support of the civilians of the country, but here what to talk of the support the civil populace was acting as the enemy, supporting the Indians by providing them with all kinds of intelligence needed by them, (3) poor communications and logistics – no reinforcements or arms and equipment could be supplied from West Pakistan. India had stopped the over flights since February 70 after very cleverly and clandestinely planting the Ganga episode, (4) lack of air cover - the only squadron of the F-86s that we had could not operate as the runway of the only military airport Kurmi Tola had been rendered out of service by the Indians bombing it incessantly. If anything, under such impossible conditions, it goes to the credit of the army that it could fight for over nine months in East Pakistan.

To be fair, he needs to talk of the Bihari massacres prior to the 25th March (it was 1971 in fact, not 1970, as he mentions). Instead of calling massacres of Biharis, as "civil disobedience", he should be calling this cold blooded murder.

In the second half of the year 1970 those in power - both civil and military – seemed to be suffering from a stupor and behaving like silent spectators waiting helplessly for the catastrophe to fall. I distinctly remember Major General A Rahim Khan – later Secretary General Defence, on or around 11 July 1970 while addressing a batch of newly posted two dozen Lt Cols and Majors to East Pakistan saying, “Gentlemen, the entire administration of the province had collapsed. I have made it stand but only on its knees. Now it will be for you to make it stand and stand it erect.” Having said this the General went on to add, “I have given my word to the Chief (Gen. Yahya) to give me three months for the task, and If I cannot do it, he can -- (I murmured under my lip, hang me!) he can - replace me.”. I was shocked that the general had equated the stakes simply to his replacement! There would be nothing in three months to replace him for!! On another occasion Lieutenant General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi – alias Tiger Niazi – the GOC Eastern Command as late as in October 70, before a special briefing to a visiting high powered army team from the GHQ on the latest military situation in East Pakistan, advised his senior staff officers not to discourage the generals from the GHQ by giving them the dismal picture or ask them for more troops. He quipped, “gentlemen, if they send us more troops - more the merrier, if not - lesser the better”.

It was 1971, not 1970!

With the result that the operational military map on the board showed more of ‘green’ pins all over the area than a few ‘Red’ pins depicting the area under the control of the Mukti Bahani. Whereas the map should have been clustered with the Red pins. The GHQ team returned satisfied about all being hunky-dor’y in East Pakistan. Similar ‘Sab Achha’ reports kept emanating from various sectors and parts of East Pakistan to West Pakistan, till the water crossed over the head. But by then it was too late for any political solution that the likes of Gen. Farman were advocating from the beginning but being too junior in the army hierarchy were not given due importance. To a few others it was a case of misplaced egoistic valour – not to be dubbed as the ‘chickens’ in the army parlance. The true information was not only denied to the common man in West Pakistan but even to those at the helm also.

Handling of the East Pakistan issue at the International level, too, was a fiasco on our part. We had not only not mobilised any world opinion in our favour but had rather alienated them mostly. On the other hand Indira undertook a whirlwind tour of 19 countries in October 1970 propagating the imaginary atrocities against the Bengalis and particularly the Hindus of East Pakistan and yet assuring each one of them that India had no designs of attacking it. While she was convincing and canvassing the world powers, her army’s Eastern Command was giving the final touches to the Attack Plan in Fort William at the eastern bank of river Hooghly, Calcutta.

It didn't fool Nixon of course. "The Indians are the most aggresive bastards in the whole of South Asia".

Whereas in our case despite Nixon’s more or less ordering Kissinger to ‘do some thing’ their 7th Fleet just passed by the Bay of Bengal without even radioing the customary courtesy good will message or tooting its horns thrice. I am personally a witness to the Chinese repeated enquiries as to what could they do, after we had established am emergency radio link with them? But all that we could get from the stupor laden President’s Secretariat at Rawalpindi was, “Just wait, please”. Hopes from the sincere Chinese friends were so high that when the Indians parachuted at Narain Ganj every one thought them to be the Chinese! Our Eastern Command had a morbid fear of the Indians capturing a piece of the territory and passing it on to the Muktis who would plant a flag there and declare it to be the Bangla Desh, and which the Indians will recognise instantly. Thus giving birth to Bangla Desh.

Consequently they spread the troops in a thin line all along the border, weakening themselves all over. There was no depth, no reserves, no second lines. There was enemy (Indians) in the front and enemy at the back (Muktis).They never realised that it was not the territory but the capital of the country that mattered. It had to be the Warsaw, the Paris, the Moscow, the Berlin and in our case the Dacca which until captured by the enemy the country would not fall. If only they had concentrated all the troops in Dacca, made a fortress out of it and fought there for months, which they could do. The East Pakistan story would have been different. We still wouldn’t have been able to avert the creation of Bangla Desh but it would have come into being by the intervention of the world powers and probably the UNO itself. Pakistan would not have had to suffer the ignominy of a defeat.

He does talk about strategic blunders here. The thin line of troops and so on. But the PA had no chance, even with a good strategy, it was a lost cause.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I disagree with this paragraph of his. Everyone in Pakistan, be they Pashtuns, Baloch, Sindhi, or even the Punjabis had to "suffer" the use of Urdu as a common language. However, it was only the Bengalis who complained..Why was this? They were either more nationalistic (possible)..or more easily provoked by their nationalistic leaders into believing Urdu was a threat to their way of life. If it was a threat to the Bengalis, it was a threat to the Pashtuns, the Sindhis, etc, but noone cared about it there.

There is a subtle difference.

Bengali literature is one of the most powerful literature like Urdu literature. The other communities hardly had any literature, let alone the majority being literate.

It is not nationalism, it is the sheer love of Bengalis for their culture and literature, which like it or not, was recognised as a superior class by itself. Rabindranath was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and possibly the first Asian to be recognised so. Read the fiery and moving poetry of Kazi Nazrul Islam. If you could read Bengali, you would understand the reason.

Secondly, The Quaid made is VERY CLEAR Lucknow, 1937 (a resolution was made), that a united Pakistan would be speaking Urdu as the official language. It was the logical choice. If Punjabi, or Bengalis was picked, the other ethnic groups would feel the bias against them. In fact, when Bangla was made the official language, the other ethnic groups of Pakistan still said nothing! However, the point was that the election manifesto of 1946 made it clear that Urdu was to be the official language of Pakistan, and this was what the Bengalis had voted for. Now later, they changed their minds, and wanted Bengali to be the official language. Sure Quaid made a mistake, and that mistake was incorporating Bengal into Pakistan. He should have noticed they were going to go into this self pitiful state and start revolting over their perceived discrimination.

Now that is just the sentiment that alienated the East Pakistanis more than anything else.

So my point is that his paragraph is incorrect. The elites were not being selfish. The elites wanted unity in Pakistan. That unity was based on a common, neutral lingua franca, which everyone had voted for in the 1946 elections. It was not selfish to demand Urdu be the common language of Pakistan.

Which elite? West Pakistanis?

Note East Pakistan was bankrolling Pakistan!

This isn't true. The "power barons" were the Bharati Muhajirs that moved to Karachi at Partition. They even took the capital to Karachi such was their influence. The Bharati Muhajirs willingly chose West Pakistan over East Pakistan. Whether they wanted to share power or wealth with East Pakistan was up to them. They did, incidentally, but there were so many factors governing the spread of wealth in East and West Pakistan, that this analysis he's made here is too simplistic.

Again your very dangerous mindset that panders on dividing society is working. What is this "Bharati Mohajirs"? Are they any less Pakistanis than you. If indeed they were power barons, it is because they were educated, clever, industrious and generally people who could look beyond their nose!

I'm not sure what he's talking about here. If he's talking about Suhrawardy becoming Prime Minister in 1956, boy has he made another big mistake. Suhrawardy was the 5th prime minister of Pakistan. Previous to him was Chowdry Ali, and Indian, and before him (3rd Prime minister of Pakistan) was Ali Bogra, ANOTHER BENGALI. Before him (2nd Prime minister of Pakistan was Khwadji Nazimuddin who was, no guesses, yet another Bengali. The first decade an a half of Pakistan's existsence was full of Bengali leaders of Pakistan. Out of the first 6 prime ministers, from 1948 - 1960, 4 of them were Bengali. Even the first president of Pakistan was Bengali. If anyone had a domination in Pakistani politics it was the Bengalis.

Being made PM does not mean capability to implement ideas. Check the democratic history of Pakistan before the Constitution came into being.

He makes a comment about a majority people happily thanking the minority for treating them equally. But this is ignoring the situation that existed in Pakistan at the time. The federal government was weak, the private investors (mainly Muhajirs) were the rich people. They chose to invest where they wanted to, not the Pakistani government. The federal government had an obligation to make sure that public institutions gave the same opportunities to both East and West Pakistanis. If one looks at the education statistics of both East and West Pakistan, East Pakistan had considerably more primary and secondary schools than West Pakistan following Partition. Suhrawardy, if it's true he alloted more money to Bengal to create more schools there than West Pakistan, was not acting in a fair manner to generate parity between the two wings, in fact quite the opposite. He should have tried to make the number of schools in both East and West Pakistan the same. That really is discrimination, when you favour your own people, over another people, and give them better chances to succeed than the rest. Quite frankly, it's ludicrous, what he's writing there.

Excuses that belie reality.

A traitor would be someone form your side who sides with your enemies. Who sided with India, and why doesn't the definition of traitor fit them? Secessionist, most definitely. Unpatriotic to the country of Pakistan, yes.

Not quite.

If one alienates a people in every manner, then what do you expect?

East Pakistan did produce more goods than West Pakistan because it had more industries there prior to Partition. If West Pakistan had less industries, does it not make sense to create more industries in West Pakistan to level out the opportunities for both West and East Pakistanis? Therefore West Pakistan would need more funding to achieve this "parity" this fellow goes on about.

If EP had more industries and so could bankroll Pakistan, it does speak about the mindset of the West Pakistanis, who were feudal and thus depended on other labour to feed their families and wallow in their personal wealth and not being bothered to contributed to the national wealth.

Secondly, it was private investment that generated the revenue from East Pakistan. Adamjee's jute mill was the classic example. The biggest jute mill (in the world in fact) was built by the West Pakistani entrepreneur in East Pakistan. Why should the revenue from this mill have gone to the federal government? No reason at all, it was pocketed by a civilian, Adamjee himself. Therefore, why should the federal government invest back into East Pakistan, when it was not receiving any revenues from the jute mills and other industries? Answer is, it shouldn't invest the money, because it didn't receive any money from East Pakistan! One could argue that the private investors were being unfair, but it is their money, and that is what private investors do. But even this falls flat on its face when one considers East Pakistan had better institutions than West Pakistan, and the federal government (and investors) should have (and were) trying to level out the playing field for both East and West PakistanIs.

Not very logical.

Mujib won the election, but then broke the Legal Framework Order by demanding his 6-point Plan. Until he renounced, or at least amended his plan, he could not take office. Why not mention of this? The Legal Framework Order is quite clear on this.

Legal Framework order?

Have you noticed the turmoil in Pakistan right now on the PCO and the Emergency? Are Pakistanis who are agitating traitors (read earlier paragraph of yours on the issue of traitors). They maybe creating a huge problems, but I don't think that would invite the label of being traitors.

Do read the Legal Framework Order.

To be fair, he needs to talk of the Bihari massacres prior to the 25th March (it was 1971 in fact, not 1970, as he mentions). Instead of calling massacres of Biharis, as "civil disobedience", he should be calling this cold blooded murder.

But then the Bengalis took them to be traitors in the same way, you talk of Bengalis as 'traitors'.

It didn't fool Nixon of course. "The Indians are the most aggresive bastards in the whole of South Asia".

Hello Nixon!

And the same advisor to Nixon, Kissinger, come crawling to India just the other day!

He does talk about strategic blunders here. The thin line of troops and so on. But the PA had no chance, even with a good strategy, it was a lost cause

.

Pakistan looked at East Pakistan and Bengalis therein as an appendage and did not care to undertake a threat analysis. They shored up the West Pak defence and leaving the East Pakistanis to survive on guts and wits. So, there is no excuse.

 

[roadrunner]

There is a subtle difference.

Bengali literature is one of the most powerful literature like Urdu literature. The other communities hardly had any literature, let alone the majority being literate.

It is not nationalism, it is the sheer love of Bengalis for their culture and literature, which like it or not, was recognised as a superior class by itself. Rabindranath was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and possibly the first Asian to be recognised so. Read the fiery and moving poetry of Kazi Nazrul Islam. If you could read Bengali, you would understand the reason.

Sindhi literatire is a weak literature? I think this is incorrect. Sindhi literature was flourishing before Bengali literature had even begun evolving! Shah Abdul Latif's poetry still attracts hundreds of pilgrims to Bhit everyday.

Pashto literature has a much longer evolution than Bengali literature too. Even Khushal Khan Khattak wrote 45,000 poems in more than 200 books!

Of course it mattered to every ethnic group in Pakistan. However, there were differences as you say. One of those differences was that the Bengalis had been indoctrinated with this nationalism about their poetry and literature, the sort of superiority complex you yourself are displaying in here when thinking about this subject. Though Rabrindranath won the Nobel Prize in 1913 for poetry, should Pakistanis feel that they are inherently more intelligent than Bengalis in Physics for there has been a Pakistani Prize Winner in Physics, but not in Bengal? Of course not! But it is possible to insitgate this sort of false nationalistic superiority into people, as you have, and as what happened with the Bengalis, based on just one or two events relating to individuals.

Your logic here is silly, Salim. It's equivalent to this. Take a Pakistani. He should be very proud of the Physics achievements of Abdus Salam, because he is a Pakistani also. If you convince him that this is true, and there is this nationalistic connection that gives him a superior edge in the field of Physics, then he will do everything to take Physics for further study. But then he finds out he's not allowed and has to take Chemistry! He gets all huffy about it, claims he's being victimized, yet the teachers stopped him from taking it for his own good! Because he simply wasnt good enough at Physics and would fail! Just as the Bengalis were made to read Urdu, for their own good! (Of course this would not mean the extinction of Bangla, just as none of the languages in modern day Pak have become extinct).

The majority of Bengalis weren't literate in fact.

Now that is just the sentiment that alienated the East Pakistanis more than anything else.

So don't read that part. Here, let me re-phrase it so you read the important parts.

Secondly, The Quaid made it VERY CLEAR in Lucknow, 1937 (a resolution was made), that a united Pakistan would be speaking Urdu as the official language. It was the logical choice. If Punjabi, or Bengalis was picked, the other ethnic groups would feel the bias against them. In fact, when Bangla was made the official language, the other ethnic groups of Pakistan still said nothing! However, the point was that the election manifesto of 1946 made it clear that Urdu was to be the official language of Pakistan, and this was what the Bengalis had voted for. Now later, they changed their minds, and wanted Bengali to be the official language. He should have noticed they were going to go into this self pitiful state and start revolting over their perceived discrimination.

..And i think everybody agrees it was a mistake incorporating Bengal into Pakistan.

Which elite? West Pakistanis?

The elites in this case refers to the people who came up with the concept of Pakistan, and who decided to make Urdu the national language..Jinnah and co.

Note East Pakistan was bankrolling Pakistan!

East Pakistan was producing more goods, because it had more industries located on its land following partition. The objective was to make a more balanced Pakistan by increasing industrial output of West Pakistan.

Again your very dangerous mindset that panders on dividing society is working. What is this "Bharati Mohajirs"? Are they any less Pakistanis than you. If indeed they were power barons, it is because they were educated, clever, industrious and generally people who could look beyond their nose!

Just avoiding the reply here. Bharati Muhajirs who could afford to move to Pakistan tended to be more rich, since they needed the money to migrate and set up in Karachi. The Muslim Banks obviously did not want to stay in a Hindu run country, so this attracted the rich into West Paksitan. It hd nothing to do with being more clever, industrious, or educated on average. You should join some right wing fascist group with this attitude!

Being made PM does not mean capability to implement ideas. Check the democratic history of Pakistan before the Constitution came into being.

Well it does. The PM is the most powerful position in Pakistan (outside of the military rule phases). The most powerful people in Pakistan happened to be Bengalis, when the alleged discrimination was taking place. Were they not guilty of the discrimination also? Why do the Pakistani Punjabis get the blame when there was not a single Pakistani Punjabi leader of Pakistan during the time? It's all built on lies.

Excuses that belie reality.

Trying to answer with facts is too much to ask when you don't know how to reply I suppose.

Not quite.

If one alienates a people in every manner, then what do you expect?

They weren't alienated. They felt this way, because they were too uneducated and docile! Whatever Mujib said, they believed. If people could believe him when he said that East Pakistan could be the richest country in the world if it werent for the Punjabis on West Paksitan, then they're just too ill-educated.

If EP had more industries and so could bankroll Pakistan, it does speak about the mindset of the West Pakistanis, who were feudal and thus depended on other labour to feed their families and wallow in their personal wealth and not being bothered to contributed to the national wealth.

The dependence on East Pakistani products was precisely due to the fact that there was no industries in West Pakistan following colonial rule. Therefore government spending was aimed at resolving this real bias, by creating more opportunities in West Pakistan. The money of course made in East Pakistan, never found its way to the majority of West Pakistan, because it was pocketed by the rich investors who had invested privately into East Pakistan. So there was no personal wealth to speak of being wallowed in by West Pakistanis.

Not very logical.

Is that your answer? It makes perfect logic. Next time give a reason for this, and you might have a stronger case for your answer.

Legal Framework order?

Have you noticed the turmoil in Pakistan right now on the PCO and the Emergency? Are Pakistanis who are agitating traitors (read earlier paragraph of yours on the issue of traitors). They maybe creating a huge problems, but I don't think that would invite the label of being traitors.

Do read the Legal Framework Order.

The legal framework order is quoted before..and yes, those Pakistanis are traitors in my opinion, who try and destroy a country..any country it could be.

But then the Bengalis took them to be traitors in the same way, you talk of Bengalis as 'traitors'.

The East Pakistani Bengalis were traitors. No discussion on this. They sided with India.

Hello Nixon!

And the same advisor to Nixon, Kissinger, come crawling to India just the other day!

Indeed Kissinger. Same thing.

Pakistan looked at East Pakistan and Bengalis therein as an appendage and did not care to undertake a threat analysis. They shored up the West Pak defence and leaving the East Pakistanis to survive on guts and wits. So, there is no excuse.

West Pak defence at the expense of East Pak defence? East Pak was strong enough to not be conquered by India, until the Bengalis invited them in. I hardly think you can say that East Pak was poorly defended, when India could not defeat East or West Pak in the 1965 war.

 

[bhangra12345]

RR,

I do not want to get into an argument with you, bcoz it only results in talking to a wall, because you almost always do not go into details. So just to put the record straight.

1) No, east pakistanis DID NOT vote for urdu as their national language. Infact the people of east pakistan did not vote directly, the voting for partition was done by the legislative assemblies of the bengal province. The point to note that the election of the assemblies was done approximately 1 1/2 years earlier.
2) The question at that time was only on whether they approve for partition, NOT whether urdu was the national language of Pakistan, which was to be decided in the yet-to-be formed constituent assembly of Pakistan.
3)In those elections, infact congress formed the govt in NWFP(Khan Abdul gaffar khan as cm) and Sindh(with Syed a splinter group member as cm).
4)In Punjab and Bengal, ML formed the govt only with the support of independents and others.

Infact NWFP's problem today could be traced back to that time. It was decided in the partition elections that NWFP's vote did not matter, i.e. if Pakistan was approved by other provinces, irrespective of NWFP's vote it will be put in Pakistan. and there is another twist to it, other provinces voted through the legislative assemblies, where as NWFP voted directly. So the most popular leader of NWFP, Khan as a result of this decision took a decision to boycott the elections completely.

Now you are talking about "1937" resolution. What was ML's strength in Bengal and punjab at that time? It was defeated in ALL provinces. In no province was it able to form a govt or be atleast a part of the govt.

Rule of Congress Ministries [1937-1939]

check out the results there. Then the congress idiotically resigned (a point which Bose opposed and had to walk out, though he was the president) from the ministries and then the ML splintering other groups came into power.
The lahore declaration talks of independent states(plural emphasized), though later on it was conveyed as a single idea. In this resolution nowhere the urdu as a national language was conveyed.

Infact even in sindh there were language riots on this issue.
To simply prove that urdu was not accepted by bengal at its start, let me ask you one thing? what is the International Mother Language Day adopted by UN today? - answer - 21st Feb, because in 1952 student demonstraters against imposition of urdu were killed on that day. - shows bengalis never approved of urdu as their national language even intially. Imposition of national language without support from minority is in itself a difficult task and here Pakistan tried to impose it without support from majority. Either the leaders were stupid or they didnt care. I vote for the second.

It does not pass even the gossip test, that bengalis EVER voted for urdu as their national language. They voted for Pakistan where they could live life as they did, and not a Pakistan where urdu was imposed on them.

 

[bhangra12345]

Your logic here is silly, Salim. It's equivalent to this. Take a Pakistani. He should be very proud of the Physics achievements of Abdus Salam, because he is a Pakistani also. If you convince him that this is true, and there is this nationalistic connection that gives him a superior edge in the field of Physics, then he will do everything to take Physics for further study. But then he finds out he's not allowed and has to take Chemistry! He gets all huffy about it, claims he's being victimized, yet the teachers stopped him from taking it for his own good! Because he simply wasnt good enough at Physics and would fail! Just as the Bengalis were made to read Urdu, for their own good! (Of course this would not mean the extinction of Bangla, just as none of the languages in modern day Pak have become extinct).

Interesting you brought this out.

and yet it was the same Abdus Salam's grave which was disfigured with support from the govt itself. If you ask an ahmedi whether the rest of Pakistanis treat them as the same as other Pakistani, what would be his answer and why? The greatest scientist which Pakistan has till now produced and who worked for Pakistan inspite of many oppurtunities elsewhere and humiliations in pakistan itself - his memory has been defiled and humiliated.

When a non-ahmedi Pakistani does not respect an ahmedi's outstanding contribution and does not give the respect deserved for a road side begger, wouldnt the ahmedis feel slighted and humiliated?

Apply the same concept towards bengalis. It requires the identification that there are differences in the people and so a fist-handed uniform solution does not work. This was the point which was lacking from west pakistan with its political centre lacked at that time.

for the bolded part:
This singles out the reason of the whole issue. Why should somebody (teachers) decide what I should do? I decide what I do, if I am interested in physics and even though the teachers may say anything, I should take physics. How and why does the teacher have an iota of control over my life, its my f*cing life, he can advice me, gracefully accepted and if I do poorly in his test- fail me. Rest, I take my own decisions. That teacher does not run my life.

Similarly the elite should not decide in what way should bengalis correspond.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Sindhi literatire is a weak literature? I think this is incorrect. Sindhi literature was flourishing before Bengali literature had even begun evolving! Shah Abdul Latif's poetry still attracts hundreds of pilgrims to Bhit everyday.

Give us a break.

Let's leave religion out of the discussion. Pilgrims can say what they want and congregate where they want.

Pashto literature has a much longer evolution than Bengali literature too. Even Khushal Khan Khattak wrote 45,000 poems in more than 200 books!

Another break if you don't mind.

Next you will tell us that Esperanto is a popular language with a fabulous literature.

Of course it mattered to every ethnic group in Pakistan. However, there were differences as you say. One of those differences was that the Bengalis had been indoctrinated with this nationalism about their poetry and literature, the sort of superiority complex you yourself are displaying in here when thinking about this subject. Though Rabrindranath won the Nobel Prize in 1913 for poetry, should Pakistanis feel that they are inherently more intelligent than Bengalis in Physics for there has been a Pakistani Prize Winner in Physics, but not in Bengal? Of course not! But it is possible to insitgate this sort of false nationalistic superiority into people, as you have, and as what happened with the Bengalis, based on just one or two events relating to individuals.

We have no superiority complex. It is just that in literature and culture we were much advanced, be we, Bengalis, Hindus, Moslem or Christians!

It appears you know very little about life and hence a trifle myopic. An Indian won the Nobel for Physics before any Pakistani won it. That way, count the number of Indians who have won the Nobel compared to Pakistanis.

And anyway, I believe the Pakistani is an Ahmediya and thus not reckonable.

Your logic here is silly, Salim. It's equivalent to this. Take a Pakistani. He should be very proud of the Physics achievements of Abdus Salam, because he is a Pakistani also. If you convince him that this is true, and there is this nationalistic connection that gives him a superior edge in the field of Physics, then he will do everything to take Physics for further study. But then he finds out he's not allowed and has to take Chemistry! He gets all huffy about it, claims he's being victimized, yet the teachers stopped him from taking it for his own good! Because he simply wasnt good enough at Physics and would fail! Just as the Bengalis were made to read Urdu, for their own good! (Of course this would not mean the extinction of Bangla, just as none of the languages in modern day Pak have become extinct).

Your knowledge is limited. An India won the Physics Nobel before a Pakistani. Guess who that was?

The majority of Bengalis weren't literate in fact.

Take another guess! The Bengalis and the Mohajirs were the ones who were educated and intelligent.

So don't read that part. Here, let me re-phrase it so you read the important parts.

Secondly, The Quaid made it VERY CLEAR in Lucknow, 1937 (a resolution was made), that a united Pakistan would be speaking Urdu as the official language. It was the logical choice. If Punjabi, or Bengalis was picked, the other ethnic groups would feel the bias against them. In fact, when Bangla was made the official language, the other ethnic groups of Pakistan still said nothing! However, the point was that the election manifesto of 1946 made it clear that Urdu was to be the official language of Pakistan, and this was what the Bengalis had voted for. Now later, they changed their minds, and wanted Bengali to be the official language. He should have noticed they were going to go into this self pitiful state and start revolting over their perceived discrimination.

I think this issue has been clarified by Bhangra.

And anyway, you never really assimilated East Pakistan into the Pakistan biradari. So, how come you expect them to accept Urdu?

Do some heart searching.

..And i think everybody agrees it was a mistake incorporating Bengal into Pakistan.

Crying over spilt milk.

You should have realised that your superiority complex was alienating people who so willingly and happily joined the new country called Pakistan.

The elites in this case refers to the people who came up with the concept of Pakistan, and who decided to make Urdu the national language..Jinnah and co.

Good for them.

East Pakistan was producing more goods, because it had more industries located on its land following partition. The objective was to make a more balanced Pakistan by increasing industrial output of West Pakistan.

At the expense of slowing down EP? Hardly a thing that would warm the coc-kles of the EP heart.

Just avoiding the reply here. Bharati Muhajirs who could afford to move to Pakistan tended to be more rich, since they needed the money to migrate and set up in Karachi. The Muslim Banks obviously did not want to stay in a Hindu run country, so this attracted the rich into West Paksitan. It hd nothing to do with being more clever, industrious, or educated on average. You should join some right wing fascist group with this attitude!

What is a 'Bharati' Mohajirs?

They are still not a part of Pakistan? Is that what you are implying? Are they that superior that they are threatening your existence and so you dislike them as is evident by your categorising them as "Bharati". They left India to go to Pakistan all starry eyed that there was going to be a Moslem motherland. And you talk of them with such contempt? And you then want to blame Bengalis for separating? If this was the attitude in India, I would also separate. Fortunately it is not so.

The fact the Mohajirs were in the helm of administration, law etc proves they are way above the others!

Well it does. The PM is the most powerful position in Pakistan (outside of the military rule phases). The most powerful people in Pakistan happened to be Bengalis, when the alleged discrimination was taking place. Were they not guilty of the discrimination also? Why do the Pakistani Punjabis get the blame when there was not a single Pakistani Punjabi leader of Pakistan during the time? It's all built on lies.

Ask yourself why they get blamed. You are not hesitating to insult Mohajirs, so imagine what was the plight of the Bengalis a 1000 miles away!

Trying to answer with facts is too much to ask when you don't know how to reply I suppose.

Pot calling the kettle......

They weren't alienated. They felt this way, because they were too uneducated and docile! Whatever Mujib said, they believed. If people could believe him when he said that East Pakistan could be the richest country in the world if it werent for the Punjabis on West Paksitan, then they're just too ill-educated.

Dacca University was one of the prime location for education! The Bengalis were not illiterate at all. Ill educated are those with biases like you.

The dependence on East Pakistani products was precisely due to the fact that there was no industries in West Pakistan following colonial rule. Therefore government spending was aimed at resolving this real bias, by creating more opportunities in West Pakistan. The money of course made in East Pakistan, never found its way to the majority of West Pakistan, because it was pocketed by the rich investors who had invested privately into East Pakistan. So there was no personal wealth to speak of being wallowed in by West Pakistanis.

If West Pakistan had no industry, don't blame it on East Pakistan Bengalis. You did not have the vision. And you talk of being educated! You were not even educated to understand how economy should be built, if indeed WP had no industry!

The legal framework order is quoted before..and yes, those Pakistanis are traitors in my opinion, who try and destroy a country..any country it could be.

The Pakistanis who you are calling traitors don't think so.

The East Pakistani Bengalis were traitors. No discussion on this. They sided with India.

They sided with themselves.

West Pak defence at the expense of East Pak defence? East Pak was strong enough to not be conquered by India, until the Bengalis invited them in. I hardly think you can say that East Pak was poorly defended, when India could not defeat East or West Pak in the 1965 war.

It shows that you have no idea of history.

When was East Pakistan ever attacked?

Read that article by a Pakistan Army officer I appended in one of the post about what happened in the wars with India?

 

[bhangra12345]

Some issues will become far more clear when we look at Mr.H.S. Suhrawardy's life, then the most famous person in Bengal.

:The Daily Star: Internet Edition

H.S. Suhrawardy personally enlisted the support of industrial workers of Bengal in favour of the Pakistan movement. His popularity among the students and younger generation had motivated many to be the most vocal supporters of the Pakistan movement. Both H.S. Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim had been credited for a landslide victory of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League during the 1946 elections.

As the Chief Minister of Bengal in 1946, H.S. Suhrawardy shouldered the responsibility of lending logistic support to the Pakistan Movement. Being essentially goaded by M.A. Jinnah, he also moved the controversial Amendment to the original version of the historic 1940 Lahore Resolution at the Delhi Convention of the Muslim League Legislators in 1946.

H.S. Suhrawardy's proposal for "Sovereign Bengal" did not gain much ground because of the fact that his reputation as a staunch defender of the Muslim rights in Bengal and his controversial role before, during, and after the 1946 riots in Calcutta had seriously eroded his credibility among the leaders and masses of the Hindu community.

Clearly it was under his direction and popularity that ML was elected in Bengal. It was these legislators who voted for Pakistan.

On the other hand, H.S. Suhrawardy had no immediate prospect of playing any meaningful leadership role in Pakistan. Instead of recognising his popularity, political stature, commitment, and organisational skills, and his contribution to the Pakistan movement at a critical juncture, M.A. Jinnah consciously patronised Khawaja Nazimuddin's bid to become the parliamentary leader of the Muslim League legislators in Bengal on August 5, 1947 (only 9 days before Pakistan was born!).

So when Pakistan became reality, he was simply thrown out.

Despite persistent attacks from the reactionary forces of the ruling Muslim League, H.S. Suhrawardy re-emerged in Pakistan's political scene as a champion of liberal democracy. He was one of the builders of opposition politics in the early years of Pakistan. Many of his followers took an active role in the formation of both the East Pakistan Student League (EPSL) in early 1948 and East Pakistan Awami Muslim League (EPAML) in June mid-1949.

These pro-democracy organisations were in the vanguard of all of the phases (1948-52) of the Bengali Language Movement. In 1953, H.S. Suhrawrdy, in collaboration with A.K. Fazlul Huq and Maulana Bhasani, was responsible for forming Jukta Front (United Front). His organisational skills and personal charisma significantly contributed to the landslide victory of the United Front over the ruling Muslim League in the 1954 general election in East Bengal.

H.S. Suhrawardy emerged as the most credible voice in support of framing a Constitution with the provisions for civil liberties and a full-blown parliamentary model of liberal democracy in Pakistan. Aimed at establishing a foothold in the Punjabi and Mohajir dominated decision-making process of the central government, he became the Law Minister in Mohammad Ali Bogra's Cabinet, and he held that position from December 20, 1954, through August, 1955.

Inspite of ML's buff, it is clear that it was his popularity which won 1946 elections which he again proved in 1954 and understand the importance of this the only elections which were conducted in Bengal were:
1937: congress
1946: ML under Suhrawardy
1954: UF under Suhrawardy
1969: AL under Sheik Mujiber Rehman

Forget about 1937, both the bengal's leaders Suhrawardy and Rehman were opposed to urdu.


Please let us not spread the canard that Bengal had ever voted for urdu as their national language.

 

[Neo]

Therefore, there is ground to believe that the East Pakistanis were never taken seriously to be Pakistani except most grudgingly and thus was always alienated. Statements like 'Idhar hum, udhar tum' indicates the feeling as also the fact that the Bengalis felt that all West Pakistanis were 'Punzabis'.

Unfortunate but true, we never treated East Pakistani's as equal.
Btw Sir, were you in Calcutta at that time? Had you already started your professional carrier in IA?

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

RR,

Infact NWFP's problem today could be traced back to that time. It was decided in the partition elections that NWFP's vote did not matter, i.e. if Pakistan was approved by other provinces, irrespective of NWFP's vote it will be put in Pakistan. and there is another twist to it, other provinces voted through the legislative assemblies, where as NWFP voted directly. So the most popular leader of NWFP, Khan as a result of this decision took a decision to boycott the elections completely.

What of "NWFP's problems" can be traced back to that time? How is a direct vote by the people of the NWFP less valid than that by elected representatives? Indeed, if a majority of the people of the NWFP voted for Pakistan, it only indicates that their can be no doubt about the fact that they wanted to be a part of Pakistan.

 

[Neo]

Pakistan’s unsavoury past​

By Haider K. Nizamani

PAKISTAN’s is a unique case in the twentieth century where a majority seceded from the minority to form a separate country. Secessionist movements across the globe are usually responses by some sort of minority against actual or perceived discrimination at the hands of a majority.

Quebecois separatists in affluent Canada, Kashmiri secessionists in India and Tamil nationalists in Sri Lanka are some well-known examples of minorities seeking separation.

Dec 16 marks the 36th anniversary of the majority in Pakistan quitting the country in 1971 after an uneasy union that lasted for almost a quarter of a century. How did this anomaly occur? Why couldn’t the idea of Pakistan hold the two parts together?

With polls due in Pakistan in less than a month, it is worth going back to the elections that were held in Dec 1970 and which turned out to be the beginning of the end of united Pakistan. By general reckoning these were the first free and fair elections held in the country. Of the 300 members in the house, 162 were to be directly elected from East Pakistan and 138 from West Pakistan.

The Awami League (AL) contested the 1970 elections on its ‘Six Points’ agenda. The party won 160 of the 162 seats in East Pakistan. The AL’s hugely popular Six Points were:

1. A federal government, parliamentary in form, would be elected through regularly held free and fair elections.

2. The federal government would control foreign affairs and defence only.

3. A separate currency and accounts would control the transfer of capital from the east to the west wing.

4. The power of taxation would rest with the provinces and the federal government would subsist on grants from the provinces.

5. Each province would be permitted to enter into trade agreements with foreign countries.

6. Each province would raise its own militia.

At first glance the above agenda would read like a kiss of death for Pakistan. That is precisely how Gen Yahya Khan, the military dictator at that time, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the leader of the largest party in the western wing, perceived them to be. That is at best a half-truth. For the Awami League each point had a historical context.

The demand for a federal parliamentary government came against the backdrop of a near unitary government with the presidential form slapped on Pakistan by Gen Ayub Khan. Believing Pakistanis to be unworthy and incapable of directly electing their lawmakers, the self-appointed field marshal used thousands of Basic Democrats to get himself elected as president.

With the doors of political articulation through democratic institutions slammed on them, the people found the military and civil bureaucracy calling the shots from the mid-1950s onward. The Bengalis had to bear the brunt of this system. Points two, three and four were a response to this situation. Exports from the eastern wing exceeded those from the west. Foreign aid flowed to Pakistan but little of it was spent in East Pakistan. Per capita income in West Pakistan was a solid 30 per cent higher than in the other half.

For the Bengalis the two-nation theory came to signify the existence of two nations within Pakistan. On the one hand were the numerically smaller but economically affluent, politically dominant and culturally hegemonic West Pakistani elite. On the other were the more numerous Bengali masses who had little say in national decision-making.

The fifth and sixth points pertaining to every province enjoying the power to enter into trade agreements with foreign countries and raise its own militia figured in the AL agenda for different reasons. For those in power, the Kashmir dispute defined Pakistan’s relations with India. Acrimony over Kashmir meant uneasy trade ties with India. East Pakistan was surrounded by India on three sides which made India its natural and logical trading partner. Bengalis saw Kashmir more as an impediment to their trade ties with India than anything else.

The message for Bengalis of the 1965 India-Pakistan war over Kashmir was that their government would leave the eastern wing at the mercy of the Indians when devising war plans. The Pakistan military was almost exclusively fighting and defending the western borders. India wisely chose not to attack East Pakistan. The implication of this was not lost on the Bengalis.

In fact, the Six Points were floated in 1966 in the aftermath of the indecisive war between India and Pakistan. The following year, the top leadership of the Awami League, including Mujibur Rehman who was affectionately called Bongabondhu (beloved of Bengal), was implicated in the Agartala Conspiracy case.

A popular movement against Ayub Khan led to the withdrawal of the sedition cases against the AL leadership and an in-house change installing Gen Yahya Khan, who promised to hold fair and free elections and transfer power to a duly elected assembly.

While campaigning for the elections was in full swing, a severe cyclone hit East Pakistan in November 1970 and the federal government didn’t do much to help ordinary Bengalis. Elections were due the following month and the Awami League used the cyclone issue as an example of West Pakistani indifference to the agony of the Bengalis and the administration’s failure to respond adequately.

Contrary to intelligence reports predicting a hung parliament, the Awami League in East Pakistan swept the polls. In West Pakistan, Z.A. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party won 81 of the 138 seats. The AL demanded the transfer of power and pledged to implement its six-point agenda. Bhutto argued that the AL plans would destroy Pakistan as it was then, and as the representative of the western wing he would not be a party to such a catastrophe. A political and constitutional crisis ensued.

There was nothing preordained about the future shape of Pakistan at this stage. Mujib knew this was possibly his best chance to press for writing anew the rules governing the running of the country. The Awami League’s unprecedented electoral mandate was further reinforced by the street mood in Bengal.

On Feb 21, 1971 (remembered as the anniversary of the Language Day martyrs), Mujib addressed a huge rally at the Shaheed Minar reiterating his commitment to the Six Points. Feb 21 is popularly know as Ekushey in Bangladesh and commemorates the killing of protesting students in 1952 by security forces over the language issue. In 1999, Unesco designated that date as the International Mother Language Day.

On March 7, 1971 Mujib in his public speech called on the Bengalis to go for total non-cooperation with the Pakistani state and asked them to be prepared for a long struggle. By this time the Bengali leadership was talking in terms of sovereignty as it thought Islamabad was totally unwilling to transfer power to the elected representatives.

Yahya and Mujib continued their talks from March 15 until the fateful day of March 25 when Yahya left for Karachi and the Pakistan Army started what was euphemistically called Operation Searchlight. The region that is now Bangladesh declared independence the following day. Nine months later, the Pakistan Army formally signed surrender papers leading to the formal independence of Bangladesh.

This was the third time in the twentieth century that the South Asian region had undergone a major political redrawing of the map. In 1905 the division of the then Bengal Presidency was one of the reasons behind the creation of the All-India Muslim League (AIML). Almost half a century later the AIML led the movement for a sovereign state comprising Muslim majority regions of India in which East Bengal played the key role. The same region in 1971 became Bangladesh.

DAWN - Editorial; December 16, 2007

 

[mujahideen]

This isn't true. The "power barons" were the Bharati Muhajirs that moved to Karachi at Partition. They even took the capital to Karachi such was their influence. The Bharati Muhajirs willingly chose West Pakistan over East Pakistan. Whether they wanted to share power or wealth with East Pakistan was up to them. They did, incidentally, but there were so many factors governing the spread of wealth in East and West Pakistan, that this analysis he's made here is too simplistic.

This surely is a very shameful remark. You have no right to doubt their nationalism they are as much Pakistani then you are. You just dont get it, stop with these comments of confrontation. Give the credit to those who rightfully deserve it. The fact is that the first place to have a Muslim League Ministry was Bengal. The fact is that Bengalis supported the Muslim League from the early days. These people whom you call "muhajirs" were also giving the Muslim League 90% of their votes from the beginning. The fact is that not till the 1940s did the Muslim League set up a Ministry in Sindh, then in the Punjab. The Muslim League didnt have a ministry in place in the Frontier or Balochistan till after independence. But getting back to your original statement, its statements like these which can break a nation. Surely this was a very shameful statement on your part. You have no right to doubt any other person ethnicity or their national spirit. Our first Prime Minister Laiquat Ali Khan also considered himself a "muhajir" by pointing a finger at the whole community you are also point a finger at the greatness of this man. Please I beg of you stop these comments, the country cant take comments such as the one above. I am a Pakistani you are a Pakistani, think as a Pakistani not as a Pathan, Punjabi, Sindhi or any other ethnicity. Please for Pakistan's sake.

 

[bhangra12345]

What of "NWFP's problems" can be traced back to that time? How is a direct vote by the people of the NWFP less valid than that by elected representatives? Indeed, if a majority of the people of the NWFP voted for Pakistan, it only indicates that their can be no doubt about the fact that they wanted to be a part of Pakistan.

Are you saying that there is no problem is swat or swat is not a part of nwfp? Is that not a "problem" area which was shown as the reason for emergency in the entire Pakistan?

"Traced back" -means only connecting the dots and not the same problem.
One can say that the latest technological development can be traced back to newton's laws, and he would be dead right. It only meant that the deals which were and had to be made to pacify then, solved that problem but in the process led to this current problem.

You didnt get what I said about NWFP partition vote? Before the vote itself, it was told that the vote doesnt count. It was such a vote and because it was a vote which was done only for academic purpose, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan asked people to boycott it. Understand the scenario it placed Khan in. He had a thumping majority in the legislature of NWFP in the elections of 1946. Everybody knows that Khan did not want to join Pakistan and wanted to join India, but yet the decision whether NWFP would be a part of Pakistan was to be decided not on the basis of vote in NWFP but on the basis of vote in punjab and sindh. Now Khan knew Punjab and Sindh's vote would be for Pakistan, so it meant though he did not want NWFP to join Pakistan, it would have to join because of geographical contiguity. It was under these conditions which led to his boycott, he was in a catch-22 situation. The three results were
1) go and campaign against partition and say he won: the partition would happen and at the end NWFP would have to join Pakistan. Now because they voted against Pakistan, they were sure to get step motherly treatment from Pakistan.
2) boycott: since nwfp's vote doesnt matter anyway, let ML win so that the step motherly treatment is avoided.
3)he participated and lost the election: lost case anyway

See his three results, which was the option he should take and why? Be in his position and decide, you know it was a case for him "tails you lose, heads I win". So he took the only face-saving option of boycotting.

When you are told before hand that your vote doesnt count, does any result in that election count?