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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