Was Pakistan’s 1971 Dismemberment Inevitable?
By Ahmad Faruqui, Ph. D.
Danville, California


If Pakistani leaders had successfully managed four conflicts, the break up of the country that took place in 1971 could have been averted.

The first conflict was cultural. Pakistan was beset with significant inter-regional rivalries from the very beginning, especially between the eastern and western wings of the country. Its ruling elite sought to impose its western culture on the east by even denying Bengali the status of a provincial language. In April 1948, the Quaid accepted Bengali as the state language of East Pakistan but this failed to stem the tide. On February 21, 1952, during the course of a province-wide strike in the east to establish Bengali as a national language, police fired on protestors and killed four. Bengali was adopted as a national language in 1956 but the damage had been done.

The second conflict was economic. East Pakistan, which accounted for 55 percent of the population and generated the bulk of Pakistan’s foreign exchange earnings, received a much smaller share of government revenues. This conflict came to a head in the sixties. Per capita income in the west grew at an annual rate of 0.6 percent during the fifties and at a much higher rate of 3.8 percent in the sixties. The east grew at a much slower rate in both decades. Consequently, its per capita income dropped from 75 percent of the west’s in 1960 to 62 percent in 1970. To those living in the east, Ayub’s celebration of his accomplishments as a Decade of Development in 1968 was a slap in the face.

Ayub’s successor sought to raise the share of development expenditures going to East Pakistan from 37 percent in the Third Five Year Plan to 52.5 percent in the Fourth Five Year Plan, but it was again a case of too little too late.

The third conflict was political. From the inception, the Muslim League that had led the freedom movement for Pakistan had not met with much acceptance in the east, which was dominated by the Awami League. Western leaders dominated the armed forces and the civil services in the Center and all of Pakistan’s wealthiest 22 families were based in the west. The Bengalis began to feel that they had simply traded one group of colonizers for another in 1947.

Their resentment climaxed during Ayub’s rule. They saw him providing army officers with generous benefits, including lands at throwaway prices, increased pay and significant retirement benefits. The Bengalis, who were very poorly represented in the army, became increasingly disenfranchised. They felt they had no share in running the affairs of state and began to look for alternative political solutions.

During the 1964 presidential elections that were carried out under Ayub’s Basic Democracy framework, Ms. Fatima Jinnah swept the polls in the east. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman of the Awami League released his party’s manifesto based on a concept of “two economies” and a constitution based on the Lahore Resolution of March 23, 1940, which had called for two independent Muslim states in the sub-continent.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Ayub was re-elected as the president. Mujib solidified his ideas by releasing his “Six Points” program on February 5, 1966. This called for limiting the federal government’s powers to defense and foreign affairs. Mujib was arrested and put on trial before the Agartala tribunal in June 1968 for conspiring with India. He was released in 1969 as Ayub convened a Round Table Conference to deal with a nationwide revolt against his rule.

Ayub failed to prevail at the conference, imposed martial law and turned over power to the army chief. In his farewell speech, Ayub said that some people had asked him to accept Mujib’s demands to restore peace in the country but he had countered, “In which country?” Ayub felt “the acceptance of these demands would have spelled the liquidation of Pakistan.” A few years later, the Hamoodur Rehman Commission of Inquiry would note that the history of the country would have been better served “if only the Field Marshal had not been so obsessed with his notions of benevolent oligarchy.”

Ayub’s successor, Gen. Yahya, was convinced that the only way to save the country was to hold parliamentary elections on the basis of adult franchise. These were held in December 1970 but Yahya refused to hand over power to the winner.

In his book about the 1971 war, Maj.-Gen. Hakeem Qureshi (retired) says that Pakistan could have been saved if the ruling elite had transferred power to the Awami League, which had won 160 of the 300 seats. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, whose People’s Party had won half as many seats as the Awami League, came up with the absurd proposal that power should be handed over to it in the western wing and to the Awami League in the eastern wing. Bhutto persuaded Yahya to postpone the convening of the National Assembly. He convinced the army that its budgetary authority and corporate interests would be compromised if Mujib came to power. Over tea on March 23, 1971, the generals took a decision to launch a military operation that would “bring the Awami League to its senses.”

The operation was launched with a mere 45,000 troops two days later. It was designed to “restore the writ of the government” over 75 million Bengalis and to take all prominent Awami Leaguers into custody. Most of them escaped the army’s dragnet and the only one who was captured and brought to West Pakistan was Mujib. The conflict between the east and west had now entered its fourth and final dimension.

Within a few months, East Pakistan was in open revolt. Millions fled to India, giving it the perfect excuse to launch military operations in late November into East Pakistan. General Manekshaw had trained for this operation for nine months. The Pakistani army, which had long proclaimed that the “defense of the east belongs in the west,” launched an offensive in the west on December 3 that died on the launch pad.

On December 16, Gen. Niazi surrendered to Gen. Aurora. Islamabad issued a terse statement worthy of George Orwell: “Fighting has ceased on the eastern front due to an arrangement between the local commanders.” The denouement surprised no one except Gen. Yahya who lost his job four days later to Bhutto, whose wish to rule Pakistan was at last fulfilled.

But for Bhutto’s conceit and the army’s corporate greed, there was nothing inevitable about the breakup of Pakistan. Had it not occurred, Pakistan would be the world’s largest Muslim democracy today. Maybe even an economic tiger.
E-Mail: faruqui@pacbell.net


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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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