বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ পঞ্চদশ খণ্ড
Population, as the only proper way, and indeed the only method acceptable to the Bengalis, for framing a constitution.
Twenty two years had passed without the constituent unit of Pakistan having agreed upon the basis on which they were to live together. The British had transferred power to a sovereign constituent assembly. This assembly had been dissolved through the intervention of the Punjabi army in October 1954. The 1956 Constitution had been adopted in circumstances which raised questions about the representative character of the body which adopted it. There was also little doubt that one-unit and parity between east and west as well as the particular distribution of powers between the centre and the regions were in effect imposed upon that body by threats of martial law. The 1962 Constitution had been promulgated by a presidential proclamation. The demand for a properly elected Constituent Assembly constituted on the basis of population was one of the points in the 21-point election manifesto of the United Front which had swept the polls in East Bengal in 1954. Now this fundamental issue, namely that the basis for living together among the different constituent units of Pakistan should be determined by the elected representatives of the people, could no longer be eluded. The Punjabi army had no legitimate basis to rule Pakistan. Indeed, it is not without a touch of irony, that the Pakistan Supreme Court ruled sometime in 1972, after the holocaust in Bangladesh, that Yahya was a usurper and that his assumption of power had been unconstitutional.
The Punjabi leaders who had argued in Ayub’s Round Table conference that only elected representatives would be competent to decide on such fundamental questions as the content of regional autonomy now changed their tune. Some among them began to press for the restoration of the 1956 Constitution, with a few amendments which were to be negotiated in a conference of political leaders. Others pressed for a promulgated Constitution like the 1962 Constitution. The prospect of a Punjabi minority being outvoted in my national body of elected representatives the nightmare of the Punjabis since the day Pakistan came into being was deeply disturbing to them. The Pathans and Baluchis and large sections of Sindhis concentrated on pressing for the immediate dismemberment of one-unit.
Yahya perceived that naked military rule could not be continued indefinitely in the face of the roused populace. He had to find some basis to legitimize his rule and to contain the pressures in both wings. His real challenge lay in the east where a strident Bengali nationalism and united the entire people behind a single leader. It had been made clear by Sheikh Mujib that the 1956 Constitution would be totally unacceptable to the Bengali people, as would any Constitution, promulgated by a decree. The consent of the Bengali people could only be secured to a Constitution framed by a Constituent Assembly consisting of directly elected representatives of the people. The Punjabi elite when threatened by an elected majority had tended to rely upon the army to secure their interests. They clearly received the threat posed by a Constituent Assembly, which might enact a Constitution which would denude the Centre of those powers which the regarded as a vital importance to them, in particular control over economic resources. The military which had been accustomed to steadily increasing defence expenditures no doubt shared this anxiety.
