Edward S. Mason, an American Professor of Harvard University, has recently said “the independence of East Pakistan is inevitable. What started as a movement for economic autonomy within the framework of a united Pakistan has been irrevocably transformed by the wholesale slaughter of East Pakistani civilians into a movement that sooner or later will produce an independent East Pakistan-”BANGLADESH’-is a matter of time.” This paper in brief traces the history of Pakistan and discusses the cultural, linguistic and social background and principally the economic and politics of the two wings are at the heart of the present conflict.
Pakistan was born on religious sentiment and after the birth the sentiment was cherished to be kept alive. There is one thousand miles of Indian Territory between East and West Pakistan. Both arc Muslims, but otherwise they are similar as Portugal and Poland. As early as 1949 Richard Simonds, in his “The Making of Pakistan", observed, “the place of E. Bengal in Pakistan is the least casy of all the provinces to assess, and its future the most difficult to foresee. “The west is dry where the camel is the main means of transport of tall men with high cheek-bones, turbans and baggy trousers, the East where in the rains transport from village to village and house to house is by boat where men are short and wear bright check lungis. West Pakistan is oriented towards the Middle East, East Pakistan is irrevocably part of South East Asia.” The Bengalis have different language, dress, diet and way of life from the West Pakistan and it was the Economist of London which quite correctly observed: “East Pakistan speaks Bengali, which-the difference from Urdu apart-means that its people belong to the most articulate, most politically conscious and most permanently disgruntled group in the sub-continent.”
These factors, therefore, show that the two pillars of Pakistan, East and West, were not fixed on the solid ground of nationalism but on the sands of religious sentiment. Ever since the birth of Pakistan the ruling class of West Pakistan thought that so long as people could be kept in a clamorous state of sentimentality they had a fair chance of exploitation of the Bengalis. The seed of exploitation and autocratic rule was sown in the ground of political history of Pakistan by the so-called father of the nation Mr. Jinnah. Mr. Jinnah became the first Governor General and later assumed the other highest posts of the State simultaneously-the Presidency of the ruling Muslim League Party and the Presidency of the Constituent Assembly. This is unprecedented in the history of a democratic country of any shade. “It was a question of time that the “Pater familiar of Roman Society would bring discontent in the family; for the existence of his absolute authority in the 20th century in Pakistan it was inevitable that a chaos would follow and this undemocratic- show would perpetuate further undemocratic developments.” So long as he was alive, he dictated his policies without having any regard to people’s opinion.
Addressing the Dacca University Convocation on 24th March 1948, Mr. Jinnah made it clear that “in Pakistan there shall be one State Language and that shall be Urdu.” This was very very undemocratic as the majority of the people of Pakistan speak Bengali, one of the richest languages of the Indo-Pakistan sub-Continent. He also hinted that the language controversy had been fomented by the “Fifth Columnists”. This political domination was followed soon by the economic exploitation of East Pakistan by the West. The West wing is also aware that without Bengal's revenue their military machine
