71.4 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড Almost every Awami League leader with whom I talked expected help from India in the shape of heavy artillery, tanks and other modern weapons to match the strength of the Pakistan army. They are approaching the Government for such help. Standing in sharp contrast with this behavior was the attitude of young a mechanichardly 25-who had crossed over from Dinajpur to spend a day in India and collect explosive necessary to blow up a bridge. More practical and Pragmatic then the leaders, he described how the fighters are learning from their past mistakes and shifting to guerilla tactics, like laying booby traps to ambush tanks. Politics Apart from the differences over fighting tactics. Political differences are developing. Resentment against the Awami League MPAs and MNAs, particularly among the rural poor, is growing. They feel that they have been deserted. Among the fighting forces also there is a feeling of being let down. They think that they were not asked well in advance to be prepared for a war. The way the senior officers of the EPR and ERR were allowed to be eliminated by the Pakistan army, even when the negotiations were on between Mujibur Rahman and Yahya Khan, indicates that the Awami League leaders were not seriously thinking in terms of a military war, From all indications it appears that the Awami League leadership has exhausted its capabilities. It reached its zenith with the success of the non-violent noncooperation movement. In mobilising the masses behind the call for non-cooperation, it demonstrated its mettle and proved to be superior even to Gandhi. In our noncooperation movement during the anti imperialist struggle, there was hardly any case of defiance like the instance of judges refusing to swear in a Governor imposed by an alien power. The sense of nationalism was complete. The Awami leaders succeeded in mobilising the masses behind the slogan of nonviolent non-cooperation, but were not expected to rally them for armed resistance. Their middle class temperament stood in the way of arming the people. They depended instead on the remnants of the ready-made machinery of the Stale-thc EPR and the ERR. Trained in conventional warfare and direct confrontation, but deprived of the necessary command and equipment, the EPR and ERR could hardly resist the superior Pakistan army. Thus with the end of the non-cooperation movement and the invasion of the Pakistan army, a new phase started in East Bengal politics-the phase of armed resistance-which the Awami League leaders failed to lead properly. In spite of our Government's wishful thinking and publicity for Sheikh Mujib's Government-in-exile, the leadership of the new stage of movement in Bangladesh is fast changing. Sincere elements in the Awami League are getting disillusioned about the leaders. A prominent leader of the Jessore area, whom I met in Calcutta a week ego, told me how he had waited for days for the top leaders- to come to a decision and for the West Bengal Government to help his boys fighting in Jessore, in vain, and had finally decided to contact "other sources" in Calcutta before leaving for Jessore. What are the other political forces in Bangladesh? Despite the subtle propaganda in our newspapers that Maulana Bhasani's National Awami Party is not participating in the
