ডঃ কামাল হোসেন
Loss of men and territory in the 1965, with no gain to show for it, had already brought down Ayub's stock with the Punjabi army, since sizeable chunks of inhabited areas lost, as well as men, were Punjabi. The Tashkent Declaration through which Ayub attempted to salvage the situation and obtain restoration of territories, instead of retrieving his own position, did further damage to in since to the Punjabis, the Tashkent Declaration was presented as a ‘sell out’ a measure of appeasement towards India conceded under Soviet pressure. Bhutto, who by many, and indeed his own accounts, had been one of the men responsible for pushing Ayub into the unfortunate war, not only ‘managed to escape from public censure for such a role, but also began to identify himself with the anti Tashkent sentiment and to dissociate himself from it. The old Punjabi Politicians, who had been sitting is out in the wings since 1958 saw in this situation an opportunity to align themselves with a discontented army, together to undermine Ayub.
In the Easter wing, the Bengalis had reacted entirely differently to the war. They had experienced a sense of total isolation, and felt ‘exposed’ and undefended. It was little consolation to be told by Bhutto that the eastern wings security had been left to assurances extended by the friendly Chinese. The Tashkent Declaration was therefore widely welcomed by almost all sections of the people in the Last.
The Punjabi politicians became active in early 1966, seeking to rally opposition forces behind a demand for political concessions from Ayub and the formation of a ‘national government’ They realised that pressure on Ayub would be truly effective if the Bengalis could be associated with this demand. Their keenness to involve Sheikh Mujib was recounted by Manik Mia (Tafazzal Hussain), the influential editor of the largest circulation Bengali daily Ittefaq. He had attended a meeting of Punjab opposition leaders in Lahore in early 1966. The assembled Punjabi leaders had urged a common opposition front to be formed against Ayub and assured that they were ‘confident that the army would not stand in their way, giving the impression that the spoke on the basis of contacts with the army, they wanted Manik Mia to persuade Sheikh Mujib to join this front. But Manik Mia knew that the question which would be put to him in Dacca was whether a change from Ayub to a central government consisting of another set of Punjabi leaders could redress the accumulated injustices suffered by the Bengalis. He therefore pointedly asked whether those present would agree to proposals for transfer of the capital, or one of the services headquarters to East Bengal or to replace parity on representation with representation on the basis of population. To this question the reply offered was, “Let us wrest away power from Ayub, and then we will see how to see about distributing it among ourselves.”
The Bengalis had not forgotten that these politicians had in their day, in the first decade of Pakistan systematically discriminated Against the Bengalis. ‘One-Unit’ and ‘Parity’ had been their brain-child. There was, therefore, some skepticism about the advantage to East Bengal of forming a common front of the kind proposed. Such a front could have some appeal for Bengalis if certain specific prior commitments were made to
