Pakistan's Loss: A Disaster or a Blessing
By Malcolm W. Browne Special to The New York Times- Dec. 25, 1971
News Analysis
The Indian Army has now separated the twins and inadvertently may have saved the life of the healthy one. In the eyes of even the most sophisticated Pakistani, the loss of East Pakistan is a disaster. The military humiliation was excruciating to a Moslem nation that despises Indians as “idol‐worshiping cow‐lovers.”
The trauma of losing more than half the population will affect all Pakistanis for many years.
Friends and relatives have been lost in the East, in some cases murdered by revengeseeking Bengali militants. Businessmen will have to do without their branches in Dacca or Chittagong.
Even the social life of West Pakistanis will be affected.
Thanks to a century of British rule, Pakistanis became nation of tea drinkers, and tea breaks are a part of office routine, business conferences and the daily life of the population.
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`Tea Party Is Over’
Now, as Pakistan's new President, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, has told his people, “The tea party is over.” All of Pakistan's tea was grown in the East.
The nation has lost 54,500 square miles of land, 61 per cent of which is arable. The West retains 310,000 square miles, of which only 21 per cent is arable.
The forest resources of Pakistan were virtually all in the East. This means that paper will he even scarcer and more expensive than it is now.
Most serious of all, Pakistan has lost the jute grown in the East, which traditionally accounted for about half the nation's foreign‐exchange earnings.
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But Pakistan still has its name: The word “Pakistan” is taken from letters of the words Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan. Bengal, or East Pakistan, was never part of the name.
Much more important, Pakistan now has a chance to develop fairly rapidly from the wretched backwardness that has characterized the nation up to now.
The West has a small but growing industrial base whose production has doubled in the last 20 years to about 12 per cent of Pakistan's gross national product.
The loss of East Pakistan has virtually solved West Pakistan's food problem.
The West is very nearly self‐sufficient in wheat, the mainstay of its diet.
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East Pakistan, on the other hand, has always had an enormous deficit in rice, the main food in Bengal, and Pakistan could provide for this only by buying foreign rice. (Actually, aid‐giving nations provide much of East Pakistan's food needs.)
New high‐yield types of rice have been introduced into East Pakistan, but with a population growing at a rate of well over 3 per cent a year there will never be enough food for East Bengal unless huge amounts of foreign aid are provided.
East Pakistan has virtually no mineral resources apart from some natural gas. It is a natural disaster area subject to periodic cyclones, floods and tidal waves.
Each fresh calamity soaks up huge amounts of relief money, only part of which can be provided by foreign donors.
As malnutrition and disease sink their roots ever deeper in Bengal, the population becomes progressively less productive as it grows larger.
In fact there are few experts who do not share the view that Bengal is truly the dominion of the damned, for whom there will never be hope of a better life no matter how much foreign assistance is provided.
That land is no longer part of Pakistan.
Pakistanis can take spiteful satisfaction in the knowledge that now India will have to look after not only her own West Bengal but East Bengal as well, both of which can be expected to drain away India's economic lifeblood.
Generals Are Discredited
But Pakistan has shed herself of something.else—potentially even more important for her future.
For the first time in Pakistan's 24‐years her army has been thoroughly beaten and discredited. The myth of military infallability is smashed.
During most of her history, Pakistan has been ruled by generals, either directly or indirectly. They have not been generals of the reforming, Nasserist, Islamic ‐Socialist stamp. More often they have resembled the British “Colonel Blimp” prototype—clubby, conservative, and fundamentally uninterested in the welfare of the population.
Despite her diplomatic friendship with China and other Communist nations, Pakistan has remained essentially an oligarchic partnership between an economic elite called the “22 families” and the army.
The national budget directly or indirectly has allocated well over half the available revenue to the armed forces each year. Education has had so small a fraction of 1 per cent it usually is not listed on budget charts.
Pakistan is essentially a nation of herdsmen, camel drivers and poor farmers whose fates are in the hands of. a few powerful sahibs.
For this first time in Pakistan's history there is a chance that this may slowly begin to change.
Mr. Bhutto has great freedom of movement, thanks to having won both an election and, after a de facto military coup, the presidency.
He has pledged to smash the sluggish, self‐serving bureaucracy that haS traditionally (shielded Pakistan's rulers from its population.
A Socialist, he has promised sweeping land reform programs.
In the space of a few days, Mr. Bhutto has made Pakistan a noticeably freer country, at least for the few people directly involved in its political future.
He has released political prisoners, abolished censorship, and pledged convincingly that he intends to make his Government and all future governments accountable to the people.
He has threatened to deal harshly with Pakistanis seeking to send their money out of the country and warned that he will nationalize any industry whose production starts to sag.
“I am not frightened by all this,” a businessman said. “I think Pakistan is going to be better place than ever in which to invest.”
Just how long Mr. Bhutto will be given by the armed’ forces and the population to reshape the nation remains to be seen, but as long as he seems to be moving he is likely to retain his powerful mandate. He is moving very fast at present.
In the months aread, Pakistan will move diplomatically, economically and culturally away from the subcontinent and toward Moslem Central Asia and the Middle East, most political observers feel.
“Our future now,” a Pakistani diplomat said, “is with our natural allies — Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and, for that matter, with the Arab states. To hell with the subcontinent! Let the Indians die with it.”
There seems to be a good chance that Pakistan will now be able to avoid the periodic wars that have afflicted her until now. There are still major territorial disputes with India but Pakistan has reason to believe that the preponderance of world opinion and possibly military muscle would be on her side in any future conflict. It is expected that this will be a deterrent.
Mr. Bhutto has made it clear he wants good relations with both China and the United States and even with the Soviet Union, which sided with India during the recent war.
“Inshallah (God willing), Pakistan has finally reached a solution to the worst of its ills,” a businessman said. “We grieve for our Moslem brothers in the East, but we must carry on and for us the sun is rising.”
