পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/৩২৯

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : চতুর্দশ খণ্ড
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the political and diplomatic negotiations that are being carried on in their name, and, even in the debates in the Security Council, have received little attention. The Indian government has recently let it be known that the human aspect of the tragedy must be deemphasized, declaring that an outpouring of sympathy, pity, and aid, however welcome, is no substitute for a political solution, which, in the governments view, involves the repatriation of the refugees—a solution that must ultimately lead to the establishment of Bangladesh. The government insists that the disaffection in East Pakistan with General Yahya and the military is so deep and wide that the refugees could not feel safe if they returned home unless General Yahya released Mujib-who is thought to be in prison and to be undergoing a secret trial for treason-and negotiated the question of Bangladesh with him. But even if Mujib were released, it is doubtful whether he could now be a moderating influence on the Bangladesh issue without being repudiated by the East Pakistanis in favor of the extremist leaders who have emerged in the liberation struggle. In any event, some observers wonder whether Bangladesh would ever welcome the refugees back even if this new nation could Somehow be brought into being. In either case, they would remain a small, helpless Hindu minority within a Muslim state, living under the threat of a second exodus, or extermination. And, supposing that any fate for the refugees, after they returned to their homes, were preferable to their continued presence in India, wouldn't Bangladesh one day serve as a magnet for West Bengali? After all, what would a Bengal nation be with more than a third of the Bengalis living outside it. in India? As for the use pf force to achieve political ends, that may result in India's acquisition of territory that could be used to settle the refugees (or even in the re-absorption of East Pakistan by India), but it will also poison relations with, a truncated Pakistan or with any future Bangladesh. Some of these speculations must have entered into the thinking of the Indian government, and that only raises another question: Why has the Indian government made the establishment of Bangladesh the crux of its refugee policy? The only answer anyone can come up with here is that the problems a poor country faces are so mind-boggling-they so often defeat all attempts at a political, not to mention a humane, solution-that the government sooner or later resorts to force to win it, a temporary reprieve. In any case, the prospect of permanently supporting the nine million refugees is so inconceivable-according to the World Bank, the minimum cost would be seven hundred million dollars a year, or a sixth of India's total budgetthat, in the absence of any real alternative, the government has taken shelter in the illusion that Bangladesh would solve the refugee problem.


 Before going to the refugee camps, I had allowed myself to hope that the conditions there would not be worse than those to be found in Calcutta. I had imagined, that there must be some limit to human' suffering and to the ability to survive. I was wrong. The Calcutta poor still evince some hope that tomorrow will bring a slight improvement in their ration or their luck. The Calcutta lepers, even on their deathbeds cry out in pain- which is at least a form of human expression-and the people found working among the poor and the lepers manage to feel and communicate some power and wealth became concentrated almost entirely in the west. The enmity with India which had a negligible influence economy of west Pakistan, all but crippled the economy of East Pakistan, which, unlike West Pakistan, depended on India for trade. The Bengalis, who had come