পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (সপ্তম খণ্ড).pdf/৩৩৯

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র : সপ্তম খণ্ড
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the people of East Pakistan. There is genuine grief and sympathy at this among the people of West Pakistan and a keen determination to set things right. But the neglect of centuries cannot be undone in two decades; there is no instant constitutional or economic panacea for this problem. The area was kept in such a state of backwardness by Hindu industrialists and landed interests during the British Raj that though producing the bulk of the jute, Dacca was not allowed even to cave pucca baling presses. At partition East Pakistan started literally from scratch. Today it has thousands of industrial units ranging from the world's largest jute industry to Pakistan's largest fertilizer and her first Steel Plant. This is not being stated with any sense of complacency, but merely to show that East Pakistan had to start with such a primitive base that it took time even to reach the level which West Pakistan, by and large, already enjoyed at independence-and this in spite of the fact that Pakistan was ruled for many years by Heads of State and Prime Ministers hailing from East Pakistan.

 Also, East Pakistan is subject to the cruel Population pressure of 1400 persons per square mile, the highest density in the world. Its biggest scourge is the havoc caused by recurring floods and cyclones, which man has still not been able to tame completely.

 Here too Pakistan's task has been made formidably difficult by India's intransigence. She is rapidly building a barrage upstream at Farakka on the Ganges, in complete violation of Pakistan's rights as the lower riparian State under international law. This by itself is an excellent expose of India's much-vaunted concern for the welfare of East Pakistan. The completion of the barrage will render barren hundreds of thousands of acres of land in East Pakistan, and threaten millions of human-beings with starvation.

 These facts are being mentioned not to cloud the fact of discontent in East Pakistan but to point out how the Awami League tore the situation out of its historical perspective and fanned economic discontent into a full-fledged hate campaign against West Pakistan, as it evolved and continuously amplified a sixpoint politico-economic plank for electioneering.

 As originally claimed, the six points were no more than a mechanism for providing the largest possible measure of autonomy to East Pakistan within the framework of a single country. Furthermore, throughout the electioneering campaign, which lasted nearly a year the Awami League leadership took pains to emphasize that their six points were not the “word of God" that “they were open to negotiation", and that it was “mischievous" on the part of the critics even to suggest that the six points, visualized anything outside the framework of Pakistan. This remained the Awami League's position right up to the polls, and accordingly it evoked statements from West Pakistan leaders expressing their readiness to work out accommodation with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, both to evolve a Constitution under Legal Framework Order and to set up a government.

 It may be pointed on that the Legal Framework Order under which the Awami League and all other political parties fought the elections clearly and unequivocally, provided that the unity, solidarity and integrity of Pakistan were to be built into any constitutional arrangement.