পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্থ খণ্ড).pdf/৮৭

উইকিসংকলন থেকে
এই পাতাটির মুদ্রণ সংশোধন করা হয়েছে, কিন্তু বৈধকরণ করা হয়নি।
বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিল : চতুর্থ খণ্ড
57

would collapse like a punctured balloon. Hence the cries of “Pakistan in Danger,” “Islam in Danger”. East Pakistanis do not believe that West Pakistan has the monopoly of either Islam or patriotism. In their own way they are adding a new dimension of Islam just as Turks, Egyptians, Algerians and Palestinians have done.

Economic Exploitation

 Robert Dorfman, an economist at Harvard University, has said “the fact of large and widening gap in the average standard of living between the two regions of Pakistan is incontestable. Even the West Pakistan dominated Government admits that the average East Pakistani must make do with barely two-thirds the average income in the West, and he faces higher prices too. The income disparity is largely the result of a systematic subordination of the interests of the Eastern region to those of the West, specially the East Pakistan's charge that allocation of foreign exchange-both that earned by the export of East Pakistan's jute and that provided by foreign aid disproportionately favors West Pakistan; that allocation of domestic investment reinforces the income disparity-and that high tariffs and import quotas raise prices to East Pakistanis in order to provide profit and jobs in West Pakistan". The Economist continues “We believe that in the main the facts support these charges.”

 Since 1952 Pakistan has been a major recipient of foreign aid, especially from Britain, the United States, France and China, the bulk of which has been used to support industrialization of West Pakistan, with only a handful of projects undertaken in East Pakistan, and even these are owned by West Pakistani industrialists. In 195960, the per capita income in West Pakistan was 32 per cent higher than in the East. Over the next ten years the annual rate of growth of income of West Pakistan was 62 % while it was only 4.2 % in East Pakistan. As a result, by 1969-70 the per capita income of the West was 61% higher than in the East. East Pakistan's foreign trade earnings are diverted to finance imports for West Pakistan and specifically, tariffs, import controls and industrial licensing compel East Pakistan to purchase commodities from West Pakistan which, but for the controls, they could obtain more cheaply in world markets. To quote the London Times of 20th October 1970: “At the moment East Pakistan buys its coal from China at a prohibited price of 172 rupees a ton. This is one of the main reasons why Last Pakistan's only steel mill is running at a huge loss. Yet coal imported from West Bengal across the border would only cost 50 rupees a ton. East Pakistan would also able to export its main commodities, fish and low grade jute, to eager markets and starved milts of West Bengal.”

 Another classic economic exploitation of the East by the Central Government of Pakistan is in the public investment sector. With 60% of the total population Last Pakistan's share of central government development expenditure has been as low as 20% during 1950-55, attaining a peak of 36% during the Third Five Year Plan period 1955-66- 1969-70. East Pakistan has received an even smaller share of private investment, less than 2.5%.

 The tidal wave of five months ago has taken its toll in East Pakistan. Nearly a million Bengali lives have been lost. No power on earth can stop natural disaster but the