Funny to see the mental gymnastics of some people who can never learn from the blunders.
The West Pakistani (mainly Punjabi and Pathan) discrimination and ridicule and persecution of Bengalis didn't start in 1971. It started soon after the partition.
Dont fool around. Rather dont fcuk around!
We know what made Banladesh, we know that mistakes were committed and we know that 'everybody' including the military had played a part in it. But the point is that we accept our mistakes, we acknowledge that Bengalis were mistreated and that they had all the right to stand up for it, but then if it hadnt been for india, things would have ended up more smoothly.
But then you probably dont know a tosh about the reasons behind the clash, as the difference with the distant centres view began to surface in East Pakistan
soon after independence, when a group of students protested the Quaid-i-Azams speech in Dacca in 1948,
that Urdu alone would be the national language. Two years later in 1950, the East Pakistan Muslim League asked for maximum autonomy.
The central governments manipulation to deny power to the elected majority in East Pakistan added to the accumulating grievances. Delays in constitution-making and holding national elections exacerbated East Pakistans sense of exclusion.
Also, East Pakistans isolation during the 1965 War and its lack of self-defence capability gave a fillip to the existing demand for autonomy.
In March 1966, the Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rehman put forward the Six Points. Ayub Khans highly centralised government equated this demand for autonomy with secessionism.
The government also implicated Mujibur Rehman in this case, though he was in custody during the Agartala Conspiracy period (say thanks to india). Mujibs Six Points and his trial made him a hero out of nothing. As if this was not enough, the federal governments indifference to the plight of the people in East Pakistan after 1970s flood broadened the mistrust fissures.
Mujib, unable to get his fair share in power,
took an extreme position.
He declined any invitation to visit Islamabad for talks. The political situation got worsened. Yahya Mujib talks in Dacca broke down on 23 March when the Awami League proposed Pakistan should be made a confederation.
We should also see the the Bengali sentiments in historical context. During the British Raj, except for a short period between 1905 and 1911, Bengal remained united. During this period, the politics and economy of Bengal were largely dominated by the
Hindus who had won favours from the British. Muslims, who were largely down trodden, were represented in
two categories: the aristocrats i.e. likes of Nawab Salim Ullah Khan etc, symbolizing the Persian-Urdu speaking culture of northern India and the native lower middle class Bengali peasants, representing the local Bengali culture.
Despite the Hindu-Muslim socio-cultural divide, Bengalis were comparatively more regional than people of many other parts of the country.
This was partly due to the influence of nationalists like Rabindranath Tagore and Romesh Chunder Dutt (Romesh Chunder Dutt was a Bengali writer, civil servant, economic historian and translator of Ramyana and Mahabharata. He had been president of Indian National Congress) and partly because Calcutta remained the capital of the country till 1911. The strength of Bengali sentiment was vividly displayed when the partition of Bengal carried out by Lord Curzon in 1905, had to be undone in 1911. The strong Bengal centric sentiment continued till 1937 elections, when Muslim League was able to form a coalition government with AK Fazlul Haqs Krishak Party in Bengal.
This coalition was an uneasy one, largely due to Fazlul Haqs provincial agenda, which did not go in line with the Muslim Leagues vision. It was during this period that Lahore Resolution was proposed and the word states included in it.
The coalition finally collapsed in 1941, only within a year of the Lahore Resolution. The Bengali sentiment was partially overshadowed by the overwhelming force of the Idea of Pakistan, resulting into landslide victory of Muslim League in 1946 elections.
The under currents however, remained.
The
Socio-Cultural aspects also played its role. Bengal projected a very vibrant socio-cultural environment, which cut across the Hindu-Muslim divide. The socio-cultural environment was, however, largely
dominated by Hindu traditions, which were willingly accepted and followed by the Muslims. The province also had a far eastern touch on its culture and society, which was because of its geographic and climatic contiguity with some of those cultures.
Except for religious values, Bengal did not share a common ground on social and cultural aspects with Muslims of northern India. This was visible in food, dress, language and festivals etc.
It is also worth pointing out here that Bengalis, despite their self belief in the richness of their customs, traditions and intellect, were not so well perceived by many others in the country which included the British, who considered them non martial race. Their language was also looked down upon by the Muslim aristocrats.
So, the indian members should know that it is in the backdrop of socio-cultural environment and Bengal centric sentiment that creation of Pakistan and east-west relations should be studied. At the time of partition there were inbuilt inadequacies in the relationship between both the wings, which
fundamentally boiled down to constraints imposed by geography and economy. As for economy, East Bengal had been a poor province during the British rule; whereas, areas that constituted West Pakistan were quite prosperous. The socio-cultural and economic differences were underpinned by the facts of geography.
Sensing the likely troubles between both the wings, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad made a prophetic statement about a decade and a half before 1971. He said, Mr. Jinnah and his followers did not seem to realize that geography was against them. These two regions have no point of physical contact. People in these two areas are completely different from one another in every respect, except only in religion. No one can hope that East and West Pakistan will carry all their differences and form one nation..
Quaid-e-Azam also appeared to have fully understood the likely complications of east, west relations: while addressing an East Pakistani audience in Dhaka on 21 March 1948 he said, You belong to a nation now; you have now carved out a territory, vast territory, it is all yours; it does not belong to a Punjabi or a Sindhi, or a Pathan, or a Bengali; it is yours. Therefore, if you want to build yourself into a nation, for Gods sake give up this provincialism. Such was the broad environment, which set the stage, for an uneasy twenty four years relationship between East and West Pakistan.
Moreover, with the domination of Urdu speaking community both at the central and provincial levels, the already partially aggrieved Bengalis
(due to award of Calcutta to India) were further antagonized by the announcement that Urdu would be the national language.
The language row started on February 25, 1948, when a Hindu Bengal member, Mr Dhirendra Nath Dutta, moved a resolution in the constituent assembly that Bengali, along with Urdu, should be used in the assembly proceedings. To this, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan responded that Pakistan is a Muslim State and it must have as its lingua franca the language of the Muslim nation
It is necessary for a nation to have one language and the language can only be Urdu and no other language.
Ofcourse, this was taken with a pinch of salt by Bengalis as their language was spoken by 54.6 % of the people of Pakistan while Urdu was the language of only 7.2 % of Pakistans population. Quaid-e-Azams assertion of the same in Dacca only after one month did no good in settling the issue. The central governments insistence to bulldoze the issue resulted into Language Riots of 1952, which resulted in some deaths and quite a lot of bad taste.
Most importantly, the immediate legal-cum-political challenge faced by the newborn state was
formulation of a constitution, which should have been drafted at the earliest, due to peculiar dictates of geographical, political, economic and social differences between the two wings. The assembly however, failed to draft a constitution till its dismissal in 1954. The consequences were obvious: politics reverted to provincial levels and trust deficit started to increase between both the wings and there were calls for more autonomy from East Pakistan. 1954 is also generally the time period, when
sub-national tendencies started to appear in East Pakistan. AK Fazlul Haq pioneered these tendencies, when as Chief Minister of East Pakistan, he made statements which were suggestive of independent Bangladesh. It is unfortunate to point out that government failed to fully comprehend the consequences of such divide. This was made obvious by its almost inaction to the United Fronts 21 points, which asked for greater autonomy for East Pakistan.
So, these were a few reasons that lead to the alienation of Bengalis. But then had india kept its dirty palms out of our internal affairs, things would have been much much better, unfortunately this was not to happen! So, to the likes of vinod, please spare us the bee ess, and dont act smart, because you are not!