Bangla Desh: In The Beginning
“However, as a price for India’s military assistance in removing the Pakistanis, the Bengali people may have substituted one oppressor for another.”
The formal establishment of Bangla Desh has ended 24 years of political, economic and social exploitation by West Pakistan. However, as a price for India’s military assistance in removing the Pakistanis, the Bengali people may have substituted one oppressor for another.
When Pakistan was created in August 15, 1947, the only thing that held the east and west wings together was the forceful political leadership of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the common religion of Islam. In a little over a year, Jinnah was dead and factionalism replaced him. Gradually, the Islam faith showed itself to be a weak adhesive in holding two ethnically different wings of Pakistan together.
The vast majority of the people in East Pakistan are Bengalis who originally came from Southeast Asia. The Punjabis who are the dominant group in the west have their roots in the Middle East. The two wings of Pakistan had different languages — Bengali spoken in the east and Urdu in the west. Combine this with the 1,000 mile distance between both wings and the low level of technology which prevented cultural mixing, and you have the foundation of a crisis which eventually led to the break-up of Pakistan.
Although East Pakistan and the Bengalis composed 55% of the population, the national government was dominated by Punjabis. The Punjabis made sure that the overwhelming proportion of foreign aid remained in the west. This helped West Pakistan make strides in industrialization whose products, including flimsy woven cotten fabrics, were marketed in the east at inflated government-fixed prices since their inferior quality made them unsalable abroad. The West Pakistan regime could get away with this because of the high protective tariffs they imposed to save the west’s infant industries. This worsened the already wretched existence of the Bengali people, whose per capita income is only 77 dollars a year.
Besides being made the victims of this economic exploitation, the Bengalis were forced to sacrifice further for its continuance. The main foreign exchange earners for Pakistan were jute (twine) and tea produced in East Pakistan. The revenues from these exports, however, did not go back to the Bengalis, but, instead, fueled West Pakistan’s factories.
Tension between the east and west was increased as a result of the miserable relief services the Islambad government provided the Bengali victims of the November 1970 cyclone. This anger was reflected in Pakistan’s first free and direct election for the central government in its history which, supposedly, would return the country to civilian rule. In a concession, General Yahya Kahn allotted East Pakistan 169 out of the 313 seats in the new National Assembly. President Yayha and other Punjabi military chiefs expected that the Bengali people would split their vote among right-wing religious parties and the Awami League, and thus assure their continued control. However, the Awami League, led by the charismatic Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, running on a platform of more autonomy for East Pakistan, rallied the oppressed Bengalis to their cause. The Awami League platform stated that the east should have separate powers of taxation, a separate currency and internal banking system, separate trading agreements with foreign countries and the establishment of East Pakistani trading missions abroad. The only role reserved for the central government was defense and foreign affairs outside the sphere of trade. The election results produced a landslide for the Awami League in the East as they captured 167 out of 169 seats. They were now the majority party and should have been given the authority to organize a new, radically decentralized government for Pakistan under Sheikh Mujib as Prime Minister. However, in keeping with Pakistani tradition in politics, the rules of the game were changed when the wrong people seemed to be winning.
The leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (the majority party in the west), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, informed Yahya that he and his party would boycott the National Assembly scheduled to convene March 3, 1971. The first duty of this body would have been the writing of a new constitution formally installing civilian rule and guaranteeing the rights of the Bengali people against the central government’s encroachment. The power crazed Mr. Bhutto had no intention of serving merely as the opposition leader, so he collaborated with the General in crushing the return of the civilian rule he had spent years advocating.
When the President announced the postponement of the opening session of the National Assembly, the Bengalis responded with demonstrations and riots. Army units were then called to quell the disturbances and many Bengalis were killed. Sheikh Mujib, upon hearing of the massacres in the streets, urged, Bengalis not to cooperate with the central government. The result of this was that a kind of Awami League government was operating in competition to Yahya’s regime.
While airlifting troop reinforcements into the East, President Yahya flew to Dacca on March 15 to negotiate with Sheikh Mujib. The negotiations served to divert world attention away from these troop movements. On March 25, the army attacked the largely unarmed citizens of Dacca with tanks and rockets. After the destruction of Dacca, the army was then deployed to other sections of East Pakistan to crush the insurgents. General Yahya Kahn declared the Awami League illegal and threw Sheikh Mujib into prison. Bengali personnel in government (sympathetic to the Awami League) were removed and replaced by West Pakistanis. Estimates are that 200,000 Bengalis were killed by the Pakistani army.
In response to the Pakistani reign of terror, the Mukti Bahini guerilla force was organized and grew rapidly, reaching approximately 100,000 before India invaded East Pakistan. The Mukti Bahini received quantities of arms from India and along with captured West Pakistani guns made considerable progress in the countryside. They established the government of Bangla Desh in areas they held and the Mukti Bahini operated a mail service there.
The Mukti Bahini welcomed Indian assistance but they didn’t want Indira Gandhi’s armed forces to invade their country. The guerillas realized that if India invaded, the Bengali drive for self-determination might be frustrated again. Demonstrations were organized in liberated areas demanding that Indian troops stay out of Bangla Desh. The Mukti Bahini then severed relations with the Awami League representatives sitting comfortably in Calcutta, claiming to be the government of Bangla Desh. The Mukti Bahini knew that these “leaders” were now mere puppets of Mrs. Gandhi.
Reports estimate that 10 million people, 70% being Hindu Bengalis, fled the Pakistani army into India. The shops, homes and land of these individuals were given by the West Pakistanis to quislings who cooperated with them. More importantly, however, this mass exodus gave India the excuse it needed to break up a hostile neighbor and establish itself as the power of the Indian subcontinent.
On December 3, all-out war between India and Pakistan broke out and from the beginning everyone knew that the 80,000 Pakistani occupation forces in Bangla Desh could not withstand the 100,000 Mukti Bahini combined with 200,000 Indian forces. The Indians cut the Pakistani army off from the outside by controlling the skies with Russian MIGs and a naval blockade in the Bay of Bengal. Fourteen days later, Lieutenant General A.A.K. Niazi, Pakistani commander in Bangla Desh, surrounded on all sides, surrendered to Indian “Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora, general officer commanding in chief of the Indian and Bangladesh forces in the eastern theatre.” This quote is from the surrender document which concluded the eastern war on December 16 and shows the dilemma the Bengalis are faced with. India, by successfully invading Bangla Desh and defeating the Pakistanis, became the “protector” of the Bengalis, and this is a role they certainly want to keep to assure a friendly administration in Dacca. Unless the Mukti Bahini fill important positions in the “official” Bangla Desh government, this country, the eighth most populated in the world, will merely be a satellite of India. The Mukti Bahini are the only force who are not completely beholden to Indira Gandhi. Already, Mrs. Gandhi has forced the Calcutta Awami League to accept pro-Soviet communists in the Bangla Desh government, even though they failed to win one seat in the December 1970 elections. This, of course, is a concession the Soviet Union forced on India in return for Russian military and diplomatic assistance. In the next issue, I’ll examine the effects this conflict had on power relationships between the Soviet Union, China, and the United States.