that's a pretty one sided view of Bangladesh...completely devoid of the fact that minority but controlling western ruling elite had neglected the eastern population to the extent that when a bengali won the elections fair and square, treacherous traitors like bhutto and yahya refused to even call in the parliament session, what the hell did you expect the bengali Pakistanis to think except that the west really hates us and we have no choice to get independence...I mean, DUH! Had power been peacefully transferred, west and east Pakistan would still be together today, mujib would've never simply settled for Bangladesh if he was going to be the ruler over both east and west. would you settle for a suzuki mehran when you had the chance of owning a chevy impala? answer is obvious...face it, the western ruling minority elite gave the entire fiasco an ethnic trust
twist.
@Bilal9 your thoughts good sir?
I really don't want to hijack the thread - this is not about Bangladesh. But since you asked - there was scope of compromise when Mujib won the popular mandate - majority of Pakistanis were Bengalis at that time, so popular mandate easily went to Mujib and he handily won position of PM fair and square.
However Yahya and Bhutto were power hungry and they were not ready to relinquish power so easily, hence Bhutto came up with "Udhar tum, Idhar hum" idea.
Mujib was even okay with self rule in East Pakistan, i.e. controlling economy, defence and major functions would be decided in Islamabad. But Yahya had already decided that this was going to be a bloody separation "hum is Haramzaad kaum ki nasl badl dunga". The rest is of course history and its greatest folly.
The game could have been played better (Ayub khan did so with Bengalis with many development items for East Pakistan, except for the fact that he finally dissolved parliament and started Military rule, which continues today). Pushing out Bengali politicos from Pakistan's top level govt. was not seen as fair by most Bengalis.
Ultimately - labelling Bengali Muslims in East Pakistan as "snakes". "traitors" and "Hindus" is a common excuse by some folks who do not understand these issues, one should realize that Indian Muslim league was formed in Calcutta by a majority of educated Bengali Muslims themselves headed by Suhrawardy, Sher-E-Bangla Fazlul Haque, the Nawab family of Dhaka etc. The first major convention of All India Muslim League was in Dhaka in a house (Rose Garden) that I have visited many times. How can one be a traitor to ones own cause?
The degree of personal Islamic religiosity in Bangladesh today is simply not something to be questioned by Muslims in other countries, as that of Malaysia and Indonesia is also unquestionable by outsiders. I mean who decides who has "Adha Imaan"? Mortals or Allah?
People who question Bangladeshi resolve about Islam need only look at our society. There are more Hijaabis in Bangladesh today than ten years ago and these folks are doing it voluntarily - not because someone is forcing them to. That should tell you something.
People in this thread who are dumping on Bangladeshis are invariably Indian false-flaggers and want to drive a wedge between the warming relations between both countries by labeling us as "traitors".
Pakistan got split not because Bengali Muslims wanted to become Hindus, it did so because of other deeper philosophical chasms and divisions which are too numerous and deep to discuss in this thread and ones which we could not reach across and resolve between both wings. We can start with feudalism vs. egalitarianism as philosophies - but let's continue that elsewhere.
en.wikipedia.org
