পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/৭৭

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খণ্ড
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 is a Pathan from the West, Yahya was determined to be fair to the Bengalis. He assigned a majority of the assembly seats to Pakistan's more populous eastern wing, which has been separated from the West by 1,000 miles of India since the partitioning of the subcontinent in 1947.

 To everyone's astonishment. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League won 167 of the 169 seats assigned to the Bengalis, a clear majority in the 313 seats assembly. 'I do not want to break Pakistan,” Mujib told Time shortly before the final rupture two weeks ago. “But we Bengalis must have autonomy so that we are not treated like a colony of the western wing.” Yahya resisted Mujib's demands for regional autonomy and a withdrawal of troops. Mujib responded by insisting on an immediate end to Martial Law. Soon the break was complete. Reportedly seized in his Dacca residence at the outset of fighting and flown to West Pakistan, Mujib will probably be tried for treason.

All Normal

 West Pakistan have been told little about the fighting. All Normal. In East was a typical newspaper heading in Karachi last week. Still, they seemed solidly behind Yahya's tough stand. “We can't have our flag defiled, our soldiers spat at, our nationality brought into disrepute,” said Pakistan Government Information Chief, Khalid Ali. “Mujib, in the end, had no love of Pakistan."

 Aware that many foreigners were sympathetic to the Bengalis, Yahya permitted the official news agency to indulge in, an orgy of paranoia. “Western press reports prove that a deep conspiracy has been hatched by the Indo-Israeli axis against the integrity of Pakistan and the Islamic basis of her ideology,” said the agency.

 The Indian government did in fact, contribute to Pakistan's anxiety. Although New Delhi denied that India was supplying arms to the, Bengali rebels, the Indian Parliament passed a unanimous resolution denouncing the “carnage” in East Pakistan. India's enthusiasm is hardly surprising in view of its long standing feud with the West Pakistanis and the brief but bloody war of 1965 over Kashmir. But Western governments urged New Delhi to restrain itself so as not to provoke West Pakistan into making an impulsive response.

Hit And Run

 For the time, being, West Pakistan's army can probably maintain its hold on Dacca and the other cities of the East! But it can hardly hope to control 55,000 sq. ml. of countryside and a hostile population indefinitely. The kind of Bengali terrorism that forced the British Raj to move the capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911, any well manifest itself again in a growing war of hit-and-run, sabotage and arson. In modem limes, the East Bengalis have been best known to foreigners as mild-mannered peasants, clerks and shopkeepers, perhaps the least martial people on the subcontinent,' But in their support of an independent Bangladesh (Bengal State), they have displayed a fighting spirit that could spell lasting turmoil for those who want Pakistan to remain united. As Mujib often asked his followers rhetorically: “Can bullets suppress 78 million people?”