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Mujib was most responsible for 1971 - Bengali scholar

The first condition in the Legal Framework Order 1970 was that Pakistan would be based on Islamic ideology. Talking against that or preaching regional hatred was outlawed in the martial law regulations and Awami League did both.

And yes the Constitution of Pakistan which all political parties are signatory to encloses the Islamic ideology. It is also a crime in our penal laws to talk against it today.
You cannot bound political parties to follow certainly defined political agenda. If majority of Pakistanis voted for secular agenda of Awami League, as per peoples wishes, Pakistan should have been changed from Islamic to secular republic. Constitution of Pakistan can be changed in any form after getting 2/3 majority for a certain clause. There is no authority to overrule that much majority in any democracy.
 
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The first condition in the Legal Framework Order 1970 was that Pakistan would be based on Islamic ideology. Talking against that or preaching regional hatred was outlawed in the martial law regulations and Awami League did both.

And yes the Constitution of Pakistan which all political parties are signatory to encloses the Islamic ideology. It is also a crime in our penal laws to talk against it today.

Not just that. The Awami League's Six Points were also a violation of the LFO. The LFO demanded that the federal government have sufficient powers left to function even if the provinces were to be autonomous. But the Six Points deprived the Federal Government of any independent financial resources to carry out even the only 2 duties the Awami League was prepared to concede to the Federal Government (defence and foreign affairs). As the Federal Government could not control taxation under Six Points. So it would not have revenue to carry out foreign affairs and defence duties.
You cannot bound political parties to follow certainly defined political agenda. If majority of Pakistanis voted for secular agenda of Awami League, as per peoples wishes, Pakistan should have been changed from Islamic to secular republic. Constitution of Pakistan can be changed in any form after getting 2/3 majority for a certain clause. There is no authority to overrule that much majority in any democracy.

I am sorry but the elections the Awami League won were held under the LFO. They gave their signatures to the LFO. And Islamic ideology was that document's first condition. You can't claim to win an election and then violate the conditions of the same document which the elections derived their legitimacy from. Without the LFO the elections were invalid and its result meaningless (leave aside Awami League's militant campaigning which broke martial all regulations and made the result in their favour look spurious anyway).
 
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Not just that. The Awami League's Six Points were also a violation of the LFO. The LFO demanded that the federal government have sufficient powers left to function even if the provinces were to be autonomous. But the Six Points deprived the Federal Government of any independent financial resources to carry out even the only 2 duties the Awami League was prepared to concede to the Federal Government )(defence and foreign affairs). As the Federal Government could not control taxation under Six Points.
You can either have democracy or you cannot. LFO already restricted political parties from seeking certain agendas to come in due in third Pakistani constitution post elections (first two constitutions were illegally dismissed by army generals). If army generals always wanted guided democracy instead of free democracy, then they should have not allowed free and fair elections to happen in the first place.
 
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You can either have democracy or you cannot. LFO already restricted political parties from seeking certain agendas to come in due in third Pakistani constitution post elections (first two constitutions were illegally dismissed by army generals). If army generals always wanted guided democracy instead of free democracy, then they should have not allowed free and fair elections to happen in the first place.

By violating the conditions of the LFO under which the elections were held the Awami League has no basis to claim respect for the results of the 1970 elections.
 
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I am sorry but the elections the Awami League won were held under the LFO. They gave their signatures to the LFO. And Islamic ideology was that document's first condition. You can't claim to win an election and then violate the conditions of the same document which the elections derived their legitimacy from. Without the LFO the elections were invalid and its result meaningless (leave aside Awami League's militant campaigning which broke martial all regulations and made the result in their favour look spurious anyway).
Awami League could easily dismiss LFO after getting landslide victory in 1970 elections. Voice of the people (democracy) is much stronger than any martial law administrators Ordinance.
By violating the conditions of the LFO the Awami League has no basis to claim respect for the results of the 1970 elections.
They had people's backing after wining more than half of all national seats
 
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Awami League could easily dismiss LFO after getting landslide victory in 1970 elections. Voice of the people (democracy) is much stronger than any martial law administrators Ordinance.

They had people's backing after wining more than half of all national seats

They won 42% of the electorate in East Pakistan (through intimidation of political opponents at that) and they only had more seats because Yahya Khan dropped the parity system between East and West Pakistan in the National Assembly. They won no seats in our wing and hardly any votes here.

And again you are dodging the fact that the legitimacy of the election they "won" was derived from the LFO. If they dismiss the LFO then they dismiss the legal basis of their "victory." Simple.
 
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US and Australia were colonial states that seeked independence from their mother homelands. East Pakistan in comparison was equal part of Federation of Pakistan. The reason East Pakistanis went for separation was due to non democratic treatment they faced from West Pakistan establishment

I have to agree with @Norwegian Bhai here - I have heard 1st hand accounts from my grandfather before he passed (when I was a teen ager) that even in East Pakistani civil service and at every level of corporate employment in East Pakistan, there was preference for West Pakistanis (especially related to nepotism issues). Since the administrative center was in West Pakistan, the perception was (however true or not) that foreign scholarships, allocation of development projects all went to West Pakistani locations.

West Pakistani administrators of the time did nothing to allay these concerns - which I'd say stemmed largely from feudal attitudes which is sort of alien to East Pakistani or Bangladeshi attitudes.

Well I'll take that back, they did write names of PIA airline, airports. money, postage stamps, official forms and large civil installations (like State Bank of Pakistan) in Bangla on the side of documents, buildings and aircraft. But that was the token extent of pandering to Bengali ethnicity (which Bengalis are very sensitive about), and which I may argue that was so different from most of West Pakistan.

There was no hands of outreach to close the cultural gap, whether perceived, or real.

Combined with "Bangal ka Kaley, bhookhey, Nangey aadmi" attitude from feudally minded administrators from West Pakistan, problems starting with 1952 Language Movement was a major political milestone which Indian agents in East Pakistan took full advantage of. Nehru had planned such a thing from the get-go, and events played right into RAW's hands until 1971 occurred.

Killing of the Bengali Language Movement students in Feb. 21, 1952 in Dhaka (concerning demand for Bengali as a National language of Pakistan) turned them into martyrs (echoed to this day by AL as political ammunition). The top administrators (mostly West Pakistani) again did little to allay these concerns, 'handle' Sheikh Mujib or placate the masses.

Please read the following for timeline of demands and events.


So when you had perception on Bengali side like this, there arose a few issues.
  • Special quarters in EP utilized these events to convert minor issues and gave them a communal tone and narrative, West Pakistanis in EP suddenly turned into 'those interlopers and faida uthanewaala outsiders'
  • If your family has money you didn't care - but for educated middle class in EP this roti-ruji issue (of Bengalis not getting hired in EP itself) became a special grievance with a popular negative mandate.
  • The Bengali Nationalist Movement (as I said above) gained massive political momentum in EP and the administrators in Islamabad paid little heed.
Ultimately - my take on this is that feudal sort of civilian rule and attitudes back in those days (like that used in ruling the military and Civilian administration in WP since Ayub Khan's rule) backfired in EP.

People in EP/Bangladesh have a very strong sense of ethnocentricity and generally believe in inclusive society and development (the level of class divide is not as wide as that in India), which is at complete odds with feudal land-owner cultural values in North India and Pakistan - which is still true today (look at the difference of baseline education, hygiene and health HDI figures between us and India).

That is just how it is, we are a homogenous group with our strong history, traditions and culture. To ask them to abandon it, and to not have an equal seat at the table (especially after Ayub Khan took over as MLA) was the final nail in the coffin.

To explain why 1971 happened to Pakistan - you have to look at the postscript to that event.

Since 1971 - this trend of providing democratic inclusive and developmental growth to the most underprivileged in Bangladesh has snowballed here, it is home to two of the world's largest NGO's, Grameen and BRAC, along with many, many others dedicated to alleviating poverty and engaged in micro-finance and social non-profit business ventures that employ a lot of upper middle class educated young Bangladeshi folks who are honored to serve at these global organizations training the world on how to alleviate poverty at a global level. My understanding is that Grameen and BRAC are also present in Pakistan and work the EDHI foundation in Karachi's largest destitute neighborhoods.

Today our population growth and female fertility level is almost at replacement rate at 2.1 child per woman (lower than India), we have more girls than boys at primary, secondary and high-school levels, and our rate of female employment is higher than that of the US.

These are demonstrations of what can happen when civil society and corporate interests work together for the greater good.


Our GDP per capita as we all know has exceeded that of India and we have more inclusive development compared to India (which is where sustainable GDP growth comes in). We were not surprised to see this development.

All this thanks to the NGO's, our civil society movement and of course some policy help from the govt. (but not much, they could do way better).
Awami League could easily dismiss LFO after getting landslide victory in 1970 elections. Voice of the people (democracy) is much stronger than any martial law administrators Ordinance.

They had people's backing after wining more than half of all national seats

By legality alone - Sheikh could demand Prime Minister-ship of all of Pakistan, but he was just fishing for some self-rule economics wise.
 
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They won 42% of the electorate in East Pakistan (through intimidation of political opponents at that)

The accounts I have heard belie this as fact. I'd be delighted to be proven wrong however.

By the way I am close to many of the members of the Dhaka Nawab family and count them as my dear friends.
 
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The accounts I have heard belie this as fact. I'd be delighted to be proven wrong however.

By the way I am close to many of the members of the Dhaka Nawab family and count them as my dear friends.

The results of the 1970 election are available for every province in any book or document. There was a 56% voter turnout in East Bengal (lower than Punjab and Sind's turnout) and of them 75% voted for Awami League. So that means their total vote share of the electorate was 42% in East Pakistan.
To explain why 1971 happened to Pakistan - you have to look at the postscript to that event.

Since 1971 - this trend of providing democratic inclusive and developmental growth to the most underprivileged in Bangladesh has snowballed here, it is home to two of the world's largest NGO's, Grameen and BRAC, along with many, many others dedicated to alleviating poverty and engaged in micro-finance and social non-profit business ventures that employ a lot of upper middle class educated young Bangladeshi folks who are honored to serve at these global organizations training the world on how to alleviate poverty at a global level. My understanding is that Grameen and BRAC are also present in Pakistan and work the EDHI foundation in Karachi's largest destitute neighborhoods.

Today our population growth and female fertility level is almost at replacement rate at 2.1 child per woman (lower than India), we have more girls than boys at primary, secondary and high-school levels, and our rate of female employment is higher than that of the US.

These are demonstrations of what can happen when civil society and corporate interests work together for the greater good.


Our GDP per capita as we all know has exceeded that of India and we have more inclusive development compared to India (which is where sustainable GDP growth comes in). We were not surprised to see this development.

All this thanks to the NGO's, our civil society movement and of course some policy help from the govt. (but not much, they could do way better).

It took Bangladesh many decades to get to the point you are describing. The period immediately following independence was anything but. In fact, throughout the 1980s and 1990s Bangladeshis were coming in lakhs to Pakistan for employment. Pakistan was also about to take off economically under our previous government, but sadly its downturn returned. But this is normal. Nations go through their ups and downs. There is no guarantee Bangladesh might not have a downturn again especially in case of political instability. But I agree with most of what you described about the pre-1971 period.

By legality alone - Sheikh could demand Prime Minister-ship of all of Pakistan, but he was just fishing for some self-rule economics wise.
He ought to have dropped the radical aspects of the Six Points and made a more favourable impression of himself vis-a-vis relations with India. For example, during the Ganga hijacking in January 1971 he condemned the Kashmiri hijackers while Bhutto praised them. In fact, Bhutto's entire popularity in the country and with the military brass came from his anti-India rhetoric. Mujib didn't do that. His rhetoric in the election campaign was directed against West Pakistan.

Saying things like "I have no dispute with India" also did not exactly give him a favourable impression. Bengalis didn't understand what value Kashmir and the conflict with India had for West Pakistan (especially Punjab whose Muslims had sacrificed lakhs of lives in Indian Punjab).
 
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No one cares about what these Bangladeshi uncle Toms have to say in BD. These are just aged sore losers on the side that lost. When they're dead, they'll be forgotten.
 
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it is home to two of the world's largest NGO's, Grameen and BRAC, along with many, many others
I personally met with founder of Grameen bank when he came to us in Norway to get Nobel Prize. What a legend he is.
Pakistan was also about to take off economically under our previous government
No it never did. Nawaz Sharif artificially inflated PKR to USD, giving you a temporary illusion of economic turn around. When in reality, all this economic growth produced was record debt and deficits that Pakistan is struggling to pay off
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let bygones be bygones. All this discussion show people lost the will to remain united. so better get separate peacefully. there were many mistakes in leadership. you can blame them, can not reverse them now.
Army's coercive measures can keep a country united for a while but it requires the people will and force with free to keep the country united. geographically east and west Pakistan were totally separate entities right from the beginning, the only major joining factor was their Muslim ideology. our army is still playing the game of managing the formation of government in the country as it was doing before 70. the stakeholders are still in disagreement in finding a smooth and agree to all form of the power transfer mechanism. they are not ready to sit together in formulation for such a mechanism. instead of using the power of logic we often opt for the power of the force.
 
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The results of the 1970 election are available for every province in any book or document. There was a 56% voter turnout in East Bengal (lower than Punjab and Sind's turnout) and of them 75% voted for Awami League. So that means their total vote share of the electorate was 42% in East Pakistan.


It took Bangladesh many decades to get to the point you are describing. The period immediately following independence was anything but. In fact, throughout the 1980s and 1990s Bangladeshis were coming in lakhs to Pakistan for employment. Pakistan was also about to take off economically under our previous government, but sadly its downturn returned. But this is normal. Nations go through their ups and downs. There is no guarantee Bangladesh might not have a downturn again especially in case of political instability. But I agree with most of what you described about the pre-1971 period.


He ought to have dropped the radical aspects of the Six Points and made a more favourable impression of himself vis-a-vis relations with India. For example, during the Ganga hijacking in January 1971 he condemned the Kashmiri hijackers while Bhutto praised them. In fact, Bhutto's entire popularity in the country and with the military brass came from his anti-India rhetoric. Mujib didn't do that. His rhetoric in the election campaign was directed against West Pakistan.

Saying things like "I have no dispute with India" also did not exactly give him a favourable impression. Bengalis didn't understand what value Kashmir and the conflict with India had for West Pakistan (especially Punjab whose Muslims had sacrificed lakhs of lives in Indian Punjab).
Maybe for once Punjabis should have taken the back seat and shown some patience. Punjabis were in the driving seat all of Ayub Khan's rule

Punjabis were so obsessed with Kashmir that they effectively lost East Pakistan.

And this is a FACT that East Pakistan was a much more valuable part of our country than Kashmir can ever be.

If E and W Pakistan were united, our combined economy alone would be close to Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

And we would be the third largest country in the world today with 400 million people.
 
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Maybe for once Punjabis should have taken the back seat and shown some patience. Punjabis were in the driving seat all of Ayub Khan's rule

Punjabis were so obsessed with Kashmir that they effectively lost East Pakistan.

And this is a FACT that East Pakistan was a much more valuable part of our country than Kashmir can ever be.

If E and W Pakistan were united, our combined economy alone would be close to Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

And we would be the third largest country in the world today with 400 million people.

lol imagine crying about what if or what could have been. You live in a fantasy world man it's time to grow up.
 
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Ab jo hogaya so hogaya. These articles won't change the reality, which is that Bangladesh is doing much better than us.

You can attribute the economic difference to our involvement in Afghan war and their political stability (which is again an exaggerated point because Sri Lanka thrived even with their Tamil civil war). But the fact is they're doing better than us in all other social metrics, such as female rights, literacy and child healthcare, as well.


Put your head down and get to work. This country needs a roadmap of atleast 20 years. Gimmicks like these articles are just a way to keep living in your bubble.
lol imagine crying about what if or what could have been. You live in a fantasy world man it's time to grow up.
The 1971 war was totally avoidable. It's not like I'm dreaming up some imaginary reality. E Pakistan was a part of our country and if we had stayed together, we would have been a much stronger country. It was something that was totally avoidable if it weren't for the racial arrogance of the junta and ruling elite at that time.

Sorry if it hurts your patriotic bubble.
 
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